Most of what is known about the clan is written in the
Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans. The
Nominalia lists as the first ruler mythical
Avitohol, who lived 300 years and descended from the Dulo clan. Josef Marquart and many other historians identified Avitohol with
Attila the Hun. According to him the
Nominalia shows that the clan memory and genealogy important to Central Asian peoples was likewise significant to the Bulgars, as well the cosmological understanding of the history, as the Avitohol and Irnik were mentioned in the category of the
creator and
founder, the mythological divine
ancestor-creator represented in the reincarnation of the cultural hero within time cycles. Jean W. Sedlar considered the Attila connection justly doubtful, and argued the possibility of a steppe dynasty which produced Hunnic rulers like Attila may have also produced rulers for the Bulgars. The second listed ruler is Irnik, who lived 150 years and also descended from the Dulo clan. It is generally considered that in the
Nominalia under Irnik was considered the third son of Attila,
Ernak. Historians usually interpreted the testimony as evidence of a massacre of the previous dynasty (the Dulo clan), and the rise of a new leader with no connection to the previous regime.
Origin The exact origin is obscure. This proposition was suggested by
Mikhail Artamonov, and was prompted by
Lev Gumilev (1967), implying there may be made an association of the Dulo clan with the five
Duolu (or To-lu) tribes of the
Western Turks. B. Zhivkov emphasized that
Duolu and
Nushibi were tribal confederations, and not ruling dynasties. Accurately or not, it still points to the rivalry between the Bulgars, led by Kubrat from the Dulo clan, and the
Khazars, led by the
Ashina clan.
Peter B. Golden surmises that the Xiongnu tribal surname 獨孤
Dugu (< ''d'uk-kuo
) or 屠各 Tuge
(< d'o-klâk
) possibly reflects underlying Turkic *Tuğqu
or *Tuğlağ'' "tribe of the
tuğ?" yet still considers the Turkic association as speculative. MacDermott considered that the Bulgarian expression preserved to this day "he kills the dog", in the meaning "he gives the orders", is a relic of the time when the Dulo Khan sacrificed a dog to the deity
Tangra in the name of the whole community. As such the proto-Bulgar language (of the group which established the state of Bulgaria), was claimed to be of Iranian language although it is generally accepted it was Turkic of
Oghuric branch and related to modern
Chuvash. Even so, all hypotheses P. B. Golden considers for now as speculative. ==Legacy==