Tltos Tradition in Hungary - Essay Example

? Taltos tradition in Hungary: past and present Introduction In 1996 Hungary completed its 1100 years of the birth of their homeland and forming their own kingdom; and as a part of the celebration there has been a renewed interest amongst the various scholars, in studying and critically analysing the past and present cultural traditions of Hungary. In these renewed studies, religion has formed a major part, since there has been a long standing debate amongst the various scholars, regarding the prehistoric era religious practices in this region. The debate revolves around two main theories, one of which claims that the religious practices of that time involved an amalgamation of the various religious principles of Islam, Christianity (Roheim, 1951), Judaism and Tengrianism; while the second theory believed that the prehistoric Hungarians practiced the ancient Shamanistic form of religion (Goodman, 1988). Both sides have presented enough evidence to prove their points, however noting the vast nature of the expansive literature that covers the entire studies on prehistoric it is beyond the scope of this paper to completely focus on the ongoing debate. Instead, my article will focus briefly on this controversial aspect of the shamanistic theory of the pre-historic era religious practices in Hungary, while also discussing the Taltos tradition, and doing a comparative analysis of the traditional aspects, as were practiced in the Shamanism and Taltos tradition. In my article, I will focus on the Shamanistic remnants within the Hungarian folklore; while taking a brief look at the Neo-shamanism and Taltos traditions, as are relevant in the modern times. Discussion What is shamanism? The word shaman is an anthropological term that relates to certain religious practices and beliefs as regards conferring with the worlds of the spirits (Hoppal, 1987, 76). The word is a derivate of the German word Schamane, and can also be related to the Russian word shaman, from Tungus saman, and was coined during the late 17th century. This belief was seen predominantly amongst the tribes living in the ancient Siberian belt, and was prevalent amongst the people of the Tungusic and the Turkic-Mongol culture, occupying an important part in the mythologies of these people (Altaic mythology). It has been seen that Tengrianism, which was followed by the Mongols, the Hungarians, and the Turkic, had many elements of shamanism integrated into their religious beliefs (Berta and Horvath, 1996, 58). A believer of these religious practices is known as shamans, and these individuals are considered to be a medium, “having access to, and influence in, the world of good and evil spirits, [and has been noticed] amongst some peoples of northern Asia and North America. Typically such people enter a trance state during a ritual, and practise divination and healing” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2010). It is believed that the shamans can treat illnesses by redressing that particular patient’s soul. The theory behind this form of treatment lies in the assumption that it is a form of trauma which causes disturbances to the patient’s soul, resulting in his physical illness, and if a shaman can manage to lessen this trauma, it ultimately works towards the healing of the physical body. There is a common belief amongst the followers of this faith that a shaman can enter the realms of the spiritual (supernatural) world, and seek for solutions to the various problems plaguing the community as a whole. [Fig 1: The picture given below is that of a ‘tunguz priest,’ or a shaman, which depicts a figure that is half animal and half human in nature, showing that the religion of shamanism had within it, shades of animism (Source: Witsen, 1672)]. Shamans are also said to be capable of visiting ‘other worlds,’ in order to channelize all misguided earthly souls into the right direction, while also healing those souls that have been affected by foreign materials, causing illnesses to the physical bodies. Thus we find that a shaman’s area of functioning mainly relates to the spiritual world, through which he/she strives to heal the human world (Eliade, 1964, 3-7), and he plays the role of both the healer of individual souls and also a mediator for the betterment of a community as a whole, by communicating with the unworldly spirits and the souls of the dead people. Recent studies have shown that these shamans had occupied an important position in the pre-historic culture of Hungary, and played a major role in their folklore and mythologies. However the origin of Hungary has been mired in controversy, and in the past there had been distinct efforts to remove all links of Hungary with that of the ancient Sumerian culture, and along with it also disconnecting the link that Hungarian shamanism had with Asian shamanism. Origin of Hungarian and the Sumerian-Hungarian link: The two major competing views on the issue of Hungarian origins are: firstly “the traditional account of Hungarian origins rooted in the pre-Christian era, which shows a remarkable degree of compatibility with the Sumerian-Hungarian relationship demonstrated by international orientalist research starting in the first half of the 19th c.; and secondly, the more recent Finno-Ugrian theory which was essentially the product of foreign regimes in Hungary: Habsburg in the 19th c., and communist in the 20th c.” (The Controversy on The Origins and Early History of The Hungarians). The traditional account dealing with the origin of the Hungarian race theorises that both the Huns and the Magyars had similar origins, which could be traced to the ancient civilisation of Mesopotamia, and the researches in the line of Sumerian-Hungarian ethno-linguistic studies also seem to corroborate this fact. However, the Finno-Ugrian line of thought is in direct contradiction to this traditional theory of the origin of the Hungarian race, and is also contentious on the issue of any pre-historic era relationship or link between the Sumerian-Hungarian cultural lines. Though the Finno-Ugrian theory appears to follow a more scientific form of linguistic studies, however, a closer look will reveal that the case is not so, and “the motives of the Finno-Ugrian theory's promoters are political and ideological: their objective has been to weaken the Hungarian national identity by instilling a collective inferiority complex in order to weaken national resistance and to consolidate foreign rule in Hungary” (ibid). Thus we find that the present official version, or the "mainstream" Hungarian social and historical studies, blindly follow the ‘Finno-Ugrian’ theory, while endorsing the incorrect perspective that the Hungarians though originating from an Asian line, had later invaded and sort of integrated into the so called ‘more advanced’ culture of the Europeans. This form of Hungarian history thus interprets a notion that stoutly disavows any connections with the ancient Turanian race, while also denying the ‘Sumerian-Scythian-Hun-Avar-Magyar’ identity of the state. By doing this, the present official version thus dismisses all the true historical and ethnographic evidences that depict the political and cultural occurrences of the people that stayed in these regions during the millennia time period, before the 1000AD; and which forms the actual groundwork or foundation of the Hungarian state as we see today (Kurti, 2000, 89-90). The Finno-Ugrian theory was conceptualised by Janos Sajnovics in 1770, a Hungarian Jesuit monk, who claimed that the Lapps and the Hungarian language were the same (Endrey, 1982, 41). This theory was later taken up by the German linguists in the second half of the nineteenth century; and August von Schlozer played the main role in the spread of this Finno-Ugrian line of Hungarian origin (ibid). This theory had a deep impact on the then political, social, cultural, and other scholarly circles of Hungary, then dominated mainly by the Germans, owing to the fact that Hungary was at that time under the control of Habsburgs, a predominantly German influenced regime (Sandor, 1987, 154). Thus, it is of little wonder that the Germans with their chauvinistic ‘superior Aryan race’ attitude quickly dismissed the ‘inferior’ ancient Asian shamanism link of the Hungarians, thus proving that the theory was a mere propaganda of ideologies (Endrey, 44). This theory took a more firm shape after the Hungarian War of Independence (1848-49), when Hungary lost its freedom, and soon all the Hungarian academic institutions also came under the control of the repressive Habsburg house, and thus soon it was very well ingrained amongst the common Hungarians, that the ruling Slav culture was Hungarian culture, and “that Hungarian folk belief is Slavic folk belief” (Roheim, 1925, 335). Here a major Hungarian folklore must be mentioned in this connection, and it is that of the curse of the Curse of Turan (Hungarian term is Turani atok) where it is strongly believed that that Hungarians have been put under a dreadful spell that has lasted for many years, and this "curse" has manifested itself through the various inter-state wars, misfortunes, and major historic disasters. This curse was supposedly placed when Hungary was converted into Christianity (under King Stephen), and when the followers of the ancient shamanism form of religion were driven out, the latter group had cursed the Christian religion saying that either it would last for only a 1000 years, or it would last forever. The Asian- Sumerian connection theory first came into being in the first half of the nineteenth century, when British, French and German archaeologists working on various sites in Mesopotamia and its adjoining areas, came upon some of the oldest known written records. On translation it was found that the language was not similar to any of the Indo-European or Semitic languages but was more like a combination of many languages, similar to what was then better known as the Turanian ethno-linguistic group (in modern ethnographic studies it is referred to as the Ural-Altaic group), which included Turkic, Mongolian, Hungarian, and Finnic languages (Erdy, 1974, 36). Before the theory could take a firm shape, two major factors created a major hurdle in its spreading. First, in Hungary, under the pressure form the Habsburgs regime, the Finno-Ugrian theory was forced upon as the official doctrine, while the Sumerian line was actively discouraged; secondly a theory was created (by J. Halevy, a rabbi from Bucharest, with very obvious political and ideological motives), where it was claimed that the Sumerians never actually existed in history, and their language were actually the secret coding of the Semitic priests of Babylonia (ibid, 170). However misguided the two theories may appear, their combined forces had managed to stop the spread of the Sumerian-Turanian relationship, and also caused a complete break in the theory of the Hungarian origin of Shamanism. The theory again came into vogue only after the defeat of the Germans in the WWII, especially amongst various Hungarian expatriates who had settled in the West, and had rediscovered the broken link from the various original documents and historical records on the Sumerians; and after a detailed study they came to the conclusion that the Sumerian and Hungarian languages are related, subsequently also bringing into limelight, the Hungarian theory of the origin of shamanism. Origin of shamanism and the Hungarian line of shamanism: the exact nature of the origin of shamanism is not clear, and this form of ritualistic religion dates back, in most probability, to the Palaeolithic or Neolithic eras (Clottes, Paleolithic Cave Art in France, 2002). There are early paintings of shamans depicted in the caves of Lascaux, that goes back to 14000- 12000 BC (Pratt, 2007, xvii). The theories on the origins of shamanism cover a wide geographic scale that stretches from the Siberia to America (both north and south), Asia, Africa and even Australia. The shamanism faith that have been seen at all these regions, do not have any human link, yet show strikingly similar characteristics, thus making it extremely difficult for the sociologists to locate the exact point of origin. Of these, the theory of a possible Hungarian origin of shamanism is the most controversial and the most debated. To study the theory that relates to shamanism in Hungary, we will have to make a study of this region between the historical time-period that covers the first recorded Neolithic settlement of the Carpathian Basin in 5000 BC, till the time of spread of Christianity in Hungary, in and around 1000 AD. Thus, at the beginning of the essay when we see the ongoing celebration of 1100 years of completion of the Hungarian kingdom, it means that here the history of this country is being counted from the time when Christianity came into being, thus erasing the very fundamental fact that Hungary’s history goes back even longer, and does not start with the coming of Christianity. So one is forced to ask, as to whether he should consider the history of Hungary by completely obviating the “pagan” history of Arpad's Hungary, and simply acknowledge the ‘Christian’ Hungary of King Istvan's? From the recent studies, it appears that many of the contemporary historians and sociologists (like Kiraly, 1921; Voigt, 1976; Korompay 1989), were more interested in concentrating only on the last 1100 years of Hungarian Christian history. Thus the debate is between the ‘Europeanizers,’ and the ‘Turanian hypothesis’ or Asiatic gravity, within the ethno-historic studies of Hungary, where we find the former insisting on a European form of traditional heritage of Hungary; while the latter believing that the Hungarian language and many of the cultures of the peasant section, speak of an ancient connection with the Asian culture (mainly of the Asiatic shamans). The Hungarian shamanism toeing the same line as that of Asian shamanism had religious beliefs that had certain specialists in the line of supernatural powers. These were: javas (the medicine person), nezo/ lato (the seer), tudos (the wise man), bosjorkany (or the witch), garaboncias (the wandering magician) and the most important of all the taltoses/ tatos/ tatus (Kurti, 2000, 91). The taltoses form the most antiquated specialist with supernatural powers in the religious order, and are generally male figures that can metamorphose into a stallion or a bull in order to fight with the evils to bring back good weather, luck, health and wealth; and to achieve the powers of a taltose he must first be born as a shaman. The taltoses have also been shown to have the ability to find treasure, a very common European practice in magic at one time, though now relegated only to the ethnographic analyses of experts, mythological and folkloric tales, and legends of the past (Bihari, 1980). The shamanizing performances were generally characterised (common feature of the European American shamanistic forms) by dancing, singing, drumming, and various other complex religious symbols (as seen in fig 2). Fig 2: A Copper carving showing a shaman with his magic drum (Source: Leem, 1767). Playing the drum was considered to be one of the most important parts of the shamanistic religious rituals. However, by the middle ages with pressures from the Christian churches many of these characteristics, especially the drumming part, had already become obsolete, and with many of the shamans being persecuted, or being forced to give up their religious beliefs, this line of faith was nearly lost. The Hungarian shamanism after the conquest of the Carpathian basin and the late middle ages co-existed with other religions like Zoroastrianism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Though suppressed under orders from the church, certain aspects of shamanism still continued to exist through the various ages; like the drum which continued to exist in the form of military drums, and were used for semi magical activities, and exist even today as children’s magical games, and also amongst the peasant community of Hungary where the drum is seen in a modified form and is known as the utogardon (Pavai, 1993), thus proving beyond doubt the shamanistic past of the Hungarians. Since taltos in the Hungarian folklore, and the taltoses in the Asiatic form of shamanism, both form an important in their religious expressions, we will now take a brief look at this magical character with his super natural powers. A comparative study of the Taltos figure as was seen in Asiatic Shamanism and the Hungarian Taltos: The origin of the word Taltos remains unclear, though as per the TESZ the word Taltos had derived from Finno –Ugric terms Khanty and Mansy that are related to ‘magic’ and ‘power’ respectively (cited in Kurti, 2000, 91). The taltos figure as we have already seen, are mainly male figures that could change into animal forms, in order to save his community or a certain individual. They were also known to able to seek out hidden treasures. In the Hungarian folklore, a Taltos, is often represented by the figure of horse that is ragged and sickly, however upon eating burning embers it magically transforms itself into a strong steed. Such taltoses with magical powers however cannot stay for a long time in one place and must always be on the move, and must constantly seek to regenerate their powers. They were also seen as being incompatible with their colleagues and ‘quarrelsome’ in nature (Kalmany, 1917). They are born warriors and defend their territory, while punishing those that ill-treat them, and also must necessarily prove their value, from time to time, to all those around them. Taltoses have been seen in various folklores as defending their own herd and getting rid of strange colleagues, while also saving their communities from foreign intruders. They were also depicted as fighting against the witches. Taltoses were born with certain distinctive feature like ‘superfluous skin or hair,’ more than 10 fingers, or being born with extra teeth. Though a Taltose had to be a shaman, but not all shamans could be Taltoses. Taltoses were able to enter into a deep trance or a deep meditation that was known as revules, performed in order to heal illnesses of any kind. The taltos also had a mission to forewarn the whole of the Hungarian nation in times of dangers, like the approach of an invading army. There were certain basic differences as perceived between a shaman and a taltos: A shaman has to peruse the ‘art,’ so that he can become a shaman; while a taltos receives his powers even before his birth. The shamans must necessarily take aid of various external materials, to be able go into a trance or a meditative stage; while a taltos can perform his "revules" without any sort of outside aid. The shaman tradition does not have any horse associated with it, while the taltos practice is incomplete without the "taltos horse". The taltos remain without any movement of any sort, while the shamans during their religious communications with the spiritual world exhibit mumbling, moving, dancing, etc., when they are performing the magical acts and connecting to the spiritual world. Traditionally shamans are without horse, while taltos tradition is based on the horse with its supernatural powers. The taltos has been depicted in folklores and mythologies as being missionaries of the God. Both shamanism and the taltos were considered to be part of pagan rituals, and hence were persecuted by the Christian monks and rulers, like that of King Stephen I of Hungary and Maria Theresa of the Hapsburg regime. Another contemporary group of healers were known as “Druids... and they were not only priests but constituted a priestly class akin to the Magyar Mag and Taltos priesthood. The name of the Druids cannot be explained with Indo-European etymology. A famous priest among them was called Mog Ruith, who, according to legend, was dressed in a suit of bull skin, over which he placed a bird costume and he was able to fly. Because of this legend, historians attempt to link him with the Siberian or Asiatic shamans with little enthusiasm”(Tomory, A New View of the Arthurian Legends). However in reality, besides being healers, very little was in common amongst the druids (primarily real human figures) and the taltos (mainly mythological- part human and part animal). Shamanistic remnants in Hungarian folklore: Comparative analysis of the various available ethnographic data from Hungarian folktales, and other historical resources, like the records of various witch hunts and their trials, show us that some characteristics of the Hungarian folklore are vestiges of shamanistic beliefs and faith practiced by the people in these regions during antiquities, or are practices that have been borrowed from the Turkic people with whom the Hungarians had once co-existed, or may have been integrated into the Hungarian culture after the Cuman immigration from the eastern hemispheres (Dioszegi, 1998). These shamanistic remnants are seen as partly preserved, as fragments of some still in practice local beliefs or cultural rites. As for example, these are often found integrated as part of some folksongs that are sung as a part of some cultural or traditional routine. There are also certain surviving symbolic motifs within the Hungarian folktales, like the well known ‘sky-reaching tree,’ (it had been a specific belief among the Uralic tribe, and is somewhat similar to the concept of the ‘world tree’) which is very similar, and is in all probability, a derivative of the shaman's tree- (seen here on the left in Fig 3, The tree of the Shamans, Source: Hoppel, 2007, 46). There were also seen amongst the Hungarian people many that practiced certain old shamanistic traditions, like, seeking lost items, performing weather related magic, and also the more popular practice of ‘fortune telling,’ and also exhibited many of the physical attributes of the shaman people, like, an extra teeth, finger, or bones, right from the time of their birth; a supposed dismemberment said to have caused by a mythological figure; etc. Similar characteristics are also evident in many cases of the Siberian shamanism. The Uralic tribe (their dialect is the Hungarian language) practiced shamanism till as late as the twentieth century, especially the Nganasan people. This tribe owing to their isolation from the rest of the world, practiced the religion of shamanism till the middle of the twentieth century, and the last recorded well known shaman's trances (of the Nganasan tribe) was seen in the 1970s (Hoppal, 1994, 62). Neo-shamanism or the Taltos tradition nowadays: Neo-shamanism is a term that, as the very name suggests, refers to a revival or a "new" form in the ancient practice of "Shamanism”, which comprises of a set of beliefs, in relation to establishing a direct connection with the spiritual world. Neo-shamanism can also be seen from a perspective, where there is a movement that tends to go back in history, in order to revive the old original culture and traditions of a country, long lost under pressures from the foreign colonial powers (as was seen in Hungary), or this loss of culture may also be a side-effect of widespread acts of genocide that may wipe off an entire section of a population; or even globalisation, which often results in a composite culture. Thus, often such movements that tend go back to the roots can be viewed as a ‘nationalist movement’ that search for one’s own origin. Similarly in case of Neo-shamanism, especially in the case of Hungarian neo-shamanism, it is indeed a movement that tends going back to one’s own origin, which had been forcibly replaced by German ideological theories. Neo-shamanism is not one single philosophy, but consists of an entire set of belief systems, made up of many different and varying philosophies. There are also certain common characteristics, like establishing connection with the spiritual world by going in to the state of a trance, and or the links with animism or pantheism (Karlsson, 2002). However, most of tribal people are resentful of the neo-shamanists and consider them to be frauds. Here York (2001) comments that such disbelief towards the practice of the neo-shamanists may originate from a major and a very basic difference that exists between neo-shamanism and traditional shamanism. This is the role of ‘fear,’ which is associated with evil and failure, and which was a major component of the ancient shamanism, entirely disregarded by the neo-shamanism. Neo-shamanism completely dismisses the concept of the fear pertaining to evil and failure. "In traditional shamanism, the shaman’s initiation is an ordeal involving pain, hardship and terror. New Age, by contrast is a religious perspective that denies the ultimately [sic] reality of the negative, and this would devalue the role of fear as well"(York, M. Millennium: Fear and Religion). Conclusion: shamanism is one of the earliest practiced religious faith or tradition that has been perceived in historical records of the human civilisation, and had existed in many parts of the world. From various ethnographic and historical records it is very evident that the Hungarian form of shamanism had strong links with the Asian shamanism, which had been very systemically obviated and destroyed first by the Christian monks, then by the Christian rulers, and lastly by the German ideological theories. Lately, there has been a revival of the shamanistic cultural traditions in the form of neo-shamanists, partly as a form of nationalistic movement of Hungary that wishes to trace back its own roots, and partly owing to some individual efforts that wishes to continue with this age old cultural heritage of the ancient human civilisation. Bibliography Berta, A., and Horvath, E. 1996. Historical and linguistic interaction between Inner-Asia and Europe: proceedings of the 39th Permanent International Conference (PIAC), Szeged, Hungary, June 16-21, 1996, 1996. Dept. of Altaic Studies, University of Szeged, 58. Bihari, A. (ed.). 1980. Magyar Hiedelemmonda Katalogus. 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Retrieved from, http://www.magtudin.org/Arthur%20part%204.htm York, M. Millennium: Fear and Religion. Retrieved from, http://www.ull.es/congresos/conmirel/YORK.html Fig 1: Witsen, N. 1672. Noord en Ost tartaryen. Amsterdam: Schalekamp. Fig 2: Leem, K. 1767. Beskrivelse over Finnmarkens Lapper, deres Tungemaal, Levemaade og forrige Afgudsdyrkelse, Copenhagen. Fig 3: Hoppel, M. 2007. Shamans and traditions. Translated by Orsolya Frank. Budapest: Akademiai Kiado, 46. Read More