proceed to consider the next race—if one may use the word—viz.: the Jazyges, formerly a military tribe, who, together with the Cumanians, live in central Hungary, in the vicinity of the capital, and occupy a territory on the banks of the rivers Danube, Zagyva, Sárrát, Tisza, and Körös.
From time immemorial, until quite recent times, they enjoyed certain privileges and administered their own affairs in three districts—the Jászság, Kis-Kúnság, and Nagy-Kúnság, entirely separate from the surrounding population, thus forming a state within a state. They had however to surrender some of their old rights in 1848, and by the law of 1876 (cap. xxxiii.), which readjusted the political divisions of the kingdom, the limits of their territory disappeared altogether from the map of Hungary.[1] With regard, then, to the nationality of the Jasz people, they are found at all periods of history in company with the Cumanians, and so, as their institutions are the same as their fellow armige-
- ↑ How dangerous a practice it is to build up history upon no other ground than the mere similarity in the sound of the names of nationalities is shewn in the history of the modern Jazyges. This name has led many a chronicler astray. Their Magyar proper name is "Jász," which, according to Hungary (Ethnography of Hungary, p. 376) is derived from the word "ijász," i. e. "an archer," or "bowman," a name describing their original occupation. In some old deeds of the xivth and xvth centuries, they are called "Jassones" and "Pharetrarii," and things kept straight until Ranzanus the Papal Nuncio at the Court of Matthias Corvinus appeared on the scene, and, struck by the sound of the name "Jassones" and rinding that they lived on the very territory which, according to Ptolemy, was occupied by the Jazyges: Metanastae in his time, at once jumped to the conclusion that they were lineal descendants of the wild horsemen mentioned by the classic author. We know how hard anything false dies, and so we find this statement copied by subsequent writers, and even disfiguring the pages of so excellent a work as Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, sub. art. "Jazyges." A still wilder mistake was made by a scribe of King Sigismund, who re-christened the Jász folk "Philistæi," which afterwards appears in many deeds. It would appear to be reasoned out thus; a "Jász," or "bowman," must naturally handle a bow and arrow; but an arrow is called "pfeil" in German, which comes from the old German "phil," hence Jász-Philistaei, Q. E. D! Cf. Hunfalvy's Ethnography loco citato.
