Hungarian Religion
HUNGARIAN RELIGION. Hungarian belongs to the Uralic languages, which can be traced back by historical linguistic methods at least to 5000–4000 BCE. Its subdivision, the Finno-Ugric languages, can be traced back similarly to 4000–3000 BCE. To reconstruct the earliest possible phases of Uralic or Finno-Ugric religions, we could find their roots in etymologies in the northernmost parts of Central Eurasia. The Ugrians (i.e., today's Voguls, Ostyaks, and Hungarians) might have lived to the east of the Ural Mountains from about 3000 BCE. They were hunters, fishermen, and gatherers around the taiga area. We do not know with any certainty when the Hungarians finally separated from the Ob-Ugrians remaining in Siberia, but their long westward migration lasted more than two thousand years. Thus, the forefathers of the Hungarians crossed the steppes and finally learned animal husbandry and some agriculture. When Byzantine and other sources describe in the eighth- and ninth-centuries CE the way of life of the Hungarians (whom they called Turks), they mention their military ability, the "worship of the fire" and burials, their "sacred kings," and a rather complicated social structure of tribes and auxiliary tribes characteristic of nomads. By about 896 CE the seven Hungarian tribes invaded the central regions of the Carpathian Basin.
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