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Ancient Big Game Hunters of Europe and their descendantsFred
Hamori April 27, 2006
IntroductionThe earliest settlers of Europe, which displaced the
local Neanderthal man, were hunters and gatherers who came into
Europe from 40,000 to 30,000 years ago from the direction of Asia,
but their ultimate origin was from Africa. Their racial type became
the major element in the central and eastern European types of
today. They are represented by the Aurignacian culture finds of
early Europe. Around 25,000 years ago another invasion also
occurred, whose culture is known as the Gravetti culture. The
coming of the ice age in Europe reached its peak from 22,000 to
18,000 years ago and isolated various pockets of humanity, which
helped contribute toward the evolution and unification of the
different major language families of Europe. The northern and
eastern European group becoming the ancestors of the FinnoUgrian
language family. Some also call the early phase of the FinnoUgrian
languages by the name Uralic and include in it the Samoyedic
languages of western Siberia, while others consider them to be from
an Asiatic ethnic group that changed their language after intense
contact with the FinnoUgrians, after the ice age. The archeological
record of the Ukraine during the Ice Age shows a fairly dense
settlement of hunters, who hunted big game. They are believed to be
the ancestors of the FinnoUgrians. The group concentrated on large
animal hunting, such as mammoth, which at the time was a
prestigious way of living. Normally they hunted the weaker animals
and the stragglers of the herds.
After 10,000 BC a new age started, known as the holocene, which
brought about major climactic changes and the end of the Ice Age,
with the warming trends in Europe that favored larger human inroads
into the continent. The change in climate brought about new plant
and animal life and also lead to the large scale death from desease
or the changes in habitat for the large mammals like the wooly
mammoth. This caused large scale movement of the hunters searching
for the disappearing big game, toward the retreating ice cap as
well as toward the unexplored north east. Groups of them eventually
trekked across northern Siberia and some even reached north America
over the Bering Sea land bridge, where the death of large mammals
eventually also occurred, probably for similar reasons. Many
FinnoUgrians however adopted to smaller game, fishing, and food
plant gathering, requiring more intensive hunting and fishing to
survive. TheFinno Ugrians were a highly mobile boat nomads, which
became differentiated in language by the major water systems that
they inhabited in northern Europe, from the Baltic Sea to the Black
Sea and spreading toward the Ural Mountains and beyond. The Ural
Mountain areas were not their source of origin, as was thought in
the past. The east vs western separation brought about the first
major dialectical change in the language of the Finnic group and
the Hungarian (Ugric) group. This became most pronounced around
2000 BC, however there is every indication that it started with the
retreating of the glaciers and the spreading toward the east of the
North Eastern branch of the Ugrians, causing a slowly accelerated
change, with new adaptation to a new environment.
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Archeological sites in today's Ukraine, north of the Black Sea
and Caspean Sea, which illustrate the northward movement of the big
game hunters, who were the ancestors of the Finno-Ugrians.
In Western Europe after the "Wrm" period, the Atlantic phase was
the warmest and wet between 5300 and 3000BC, following the flooding
of the Black Sea. In Siberia however the climate was warm and dry
between 7600BC and 5300BC. After 3000BC the climate changed again
by cooling then after 2200 and 1400 there was a warming period, and
around 1200BC the weather became dryer. With warming weather the
steppes became dry causing the migrations ofpeople in search of
forage for their animals. At this point the northern Ugrians
started moving further north, since lands became too dry and
couldnt be cultivated. Then again the weather changed to colder and
wetter, followed by the Sub-Atlantic weather change which was
colder and drier again. Even though they originally had a plant
cultivating way of living, their homelands became the taiga. So
they were forced to keep adapting to the old hunter fisher life of
the past. The evidence that the Ob Ugrians indeed had a higher
culture in the past is proven in the archeology of Ust Puluy, which
is a bay inlet to the river Ob. It was a holy place for the Ob
Ugrians. From the 4th century BC to the 2nd Century AD a
homogeneous culture existed here along the river Ob and the Irtis,
Isim and Tobol. Besides the many wooden and bone tools there were
also lots of bronze utensils found. They were part and parcel of
the Andronovo Bronze Culture.
Around 8000 BC there was another major invasion of Europe from
the Near East, in the Neolithic "new stone age". Theappearance of
the IndoEuropean, languages occurred around 5000 years ago probably
by way of Anatolia. Today they represent the majority of the
languages of Europe. It was believed by some experts in the past,
that the incoming IndoEuropeans brought farming into Europe,
however the analysis of their names for agriculture, grains and
words for bread bear witness against this, as do the lack of
agricultural elements in their early mythology. They were cattle
herdersmore likely. It seems that some other now extinct groups
spread agriculture across Europe and were later adopted in areas
easy to farm by the locals. These groups were later absorbed by the
IndoEuropeans. Various explanations were given for the widespread
of the IndoEuropean language family, at the expense of the others,
but many of these ideas are far from provable and some are
downright illogical. It appears that the majority of Europeans
still carry the genes of the earlier hunters of Europe, rather than
the genes of the later invaders, even though their original
language have changed to IndoEuropean. Their earliest known
settlements are known from the Balkans as the ancestors of the
early Greeks and nearby Anatolia, as the now extinct Hittites,
whose language was the earliest Indo European dialect to be
recorded. Spreading northward across central Europe and then
westward, while a group stayed in north central Europe and later
split into a Slavic and Baltic language family while the Western
group into Celtic and Germanic. Latin and Greek moving south along
the coast. All of these groups incorporated a lot of the local
populations into their ethnic elements and also enriched their
languages with words from these languages as well as adopting many
gods and goddesses from them.
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The theory of Hungarian archeologist Gyula Lszl was that based
on linguistic palenteology, the homeland of the Uralic languages
roughly coincides with the Swiderian Culture of north eastern
Europe, which is shown in vertical linesabove. He placed the oldest
Hungarian homelands west of the Urals, from where the Ob Ugrians
also spread toward Siberia. There are of course problems whenever a
large culture area is equated with any one language family, which
implies that they had no contacts with other groups. The situation
may not be that simple, even though it may work to a considerable
degree at times.
Genetics 2It is believed that the earliest settlers of Europe
were the Finno Ugrians in the east and the ancestors of the Basque
in the west, and these two groups represent the highest
concentration of the two major European Y chromosome haplotypes.
EU18 in the Basque is the highest at 88% and EU19 is highest among
Hungarians, with 60%. The two language groups Basque and
FinnoUgrian are quite similar in type and do share vocabulary also,
yet they have been separated by a huge time span and are not
considered to be related. They probably entered Europe from the
same areas at about the same time. Their time of separation may be
well in excess of 10,000 years, possibly from before the onset of
the Ice Age, which isolated them into an eastern and western
region. Another major eastern language family is called Altaic,
whose three major branches are Turkic, Tungusic, and Mongolic,
while Korean and Japanese are also contested as members. The
branching of Turkic is rather recent, so many of their languages
are understandable by others, howeverthere is an old Turkic dialect
that survived in Eastern Europe called Chuvash, which had many
early interactions with the local Finno Ugrian languages. This
Chuvash language belongs to an ancient "r" criteria dialect,
whereas most Turkiclanguages are from Asia with a "z" criteria
dialects. This means that many root words which have R in Chuvash
use Z for the same letter in eastern Turkic. It is argued as to
which came first, but I would bet that the "r" version is the early
western form, since shared words with languages like Sumerian that
are very old, have the "r" version and not the "z". The ancient
ties with Altaic can be best explained by the origin of Altaic
languages from eastern Europe, from the steppes of today's southern
Russia. In their adapting to the changing climate they started
herding sheep and eventually horses, which gave them the mobility
to spread throughout central Asia all the way to the frontiers of
China.
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The chart represents the typical average Y Chromosome haplotypes
found in various nationalities of Europe. Unfortunately not all
nationalities are listed, because of lack of material or space in
the chart>From: Szab Istvn Mihly, "A Magyar Np Eredete",
Budapest 2004.
Their spreading into Asia, after the taming of the horse,
brought the proto-Turks increasingly into contact with Asiatic
mongoloid people, which over time effected their genetic makeup,
the further east they lived. This is probably the way in which
Altaic languages were spread to the Siberian Tunguz and far eastern
Mongols. This theory postulates that the Mongolic and Tungusic
branches of the Altaic languages before this time were different,
and that their language today probably has many traces of their
older pre-Altaic words. Words and characteristics of speech, which
cannot be found inthe older Finno-Ugric-early Turkic languages of
Old Europe. While the majority of the Finno-Ugrians moved north in
search of big game, there were several southern groups that adapted
to the new conditions and also adopted animal herding, then horse
domestication and later also agriculture. Historically the Greeks
knew of a people in this region known as the Cimmerians, who fit
this description closely. Linguistically nothing can be proven
about the Cimmerian ties, since we hardly know anything at all
about their language(s). Perhaps this group could be also called
the "southern Ugrians" for now, until a more meaningful term can be
coined to replace it.
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This map is from a very interesting article on early Uralic
languages, which contrasts the very old theory based on somefalse
presumptions on the rate of spreading (of agriculturalists not
hunters) to the newer one he presents:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/paabo/uirala/uinit-FinnoUgricbackground.html
The Early Language and Culture of the FinnoUgriansThe early
FinnoUgrians were big game hunters during the Ice Ages, and this
was a very prominent and successful way of life at that time. This
allowed them to spread throughout most of northern Europe, but not
all the way into the Arctic at this time. However after the Ice Age
these animals moved north and due to the major climactic changes
started to die out due to various diseases, caused perhaps by the
climate change. The FinnoUgrians can be characterized also as water
nomads, who traveled in the northern waterways, predominantly along
the shores of the sea and along rivers and streams in their small
boats, rarely crossing major mountains. Following the Ice Age, the
Finno Ugrians continued as hunters and gatherers. Their way of life
was very similar to the North American Indians of the north eastern
woodlands, whose main dialects were also separated into different
disconnected water basins. They were hunters and fishermen, who
used nets and weirs and who also caught other small animals like
birds in large nets that were strung across trees. The animals of
the south, the polar regions or the far east were originally
naturally unknown to them. The key animal names that remained in
Hungarian from FinnoUgrian are relatively few and sometimes have a
very generic meaning. Many of the large domestic animals, besides
the dog and horse, were from Turkic languages or Iranic or other
IndoEuropean. The following examples are not a complete list of
known names, but just a sample.
animal herd *chure [csor-da] horned animals *sharwes,
[szarvas]moose "humped" *tee [teve =camel (turkic also changed to
camel)]female sheep/goat *es'e [sz=heiffer, z=deer]goat *eja dog
*ktta [kutya] this is the most common form used.dog,hound *empe
[eb] snake *kije [kijo, kigy]ant *kue (also kue) [hangya]horse
*luwe [lov, l] In Ugrian only!butterfly,flitter *leppe [lepke]kunte
*beaver [hd] -believed to be from Turkic, but also found in
American Penuitan.marten *uke [nyszt]rabbit *numol [nyuv-ol
>> nyl] m>v>blkworm *perkke [frg]fox *ropa [p>v
ravasz, r-ka] porcupine *ije-le [siul>szgy >sn]rodent/mouse
*iere [egr]termite *uke [sz ]bear *opa ["grandfather"]
The bear was sacred to many FinnoUgrian tribes and its name was
totemic, and its descriptor name varied. The old name of it was
totally lost, because it was taboo to use it. The name of the bear
in Hungarian is "medve" which was
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influenced by Slavic, but could have originally come from the
old FU words "*mete"=honey + "see"=eat-er, which otherwise would
have become "mz-ev" in Hungarian, instead of "medve". Similarly the
elk was also called by it's characteristics horns, rather than it's
original name, since it was a totem animal of some of the southern
tribes. Hence the name "horned" *s'arwes becoming szarvas, was only
a rough descriptor. Both of these animals were associated with
heaven and had constellations named after them. The big dipper was
called the constellation of the stagg. This is also found amongst
the North American Indians.
Various bird names and fish names are also known. Some of these
names are also found in Altaic languages.
woodpecker *kar [har-kly]swan *kotte [haty]raven *kul-ke
[holl]bird/waterfowl *lunta [ld=goose]swallow (bird) *pch-ke
[fecske]waterbird,grouse *paje [f, fuv-at]wood grouse *padht
[fajd]grouse/partridge *padht [fogoly]crane *tar-ke [dar]wild duck
*waich [vcs-k] crow *wr [varj]falcon,eagle *tsash-ku [sas ]the fly
*leche [lgy] bee *mektse [mh]mosquito , midge *neme [nyv]louse *tje
[tet]fish *kala [hal]fish type *kech [keszeg]type of small fish
*kor fish bladder *kwla [holyag]
Food Plantsonion *kome [hagyma]eincorn wheat *ime-tt
[evet]millet , flour *kelee [kles]groats, cereal meal *keer
[kenyr=bread]
SocietyThey lived in a slightly stratified societies, which did
not have kings or noblemen or high priests, which would enslave and
control the assets of their community, forcing the lower classes to
live in squalor. Although there was a difference of higher class
clans (mos) and lower class clans (por). The origin and explanation
of that distinction is still argued today, but it already existed
in old Sumerian, which came from this region. The term Hungarians
use for themselves, which is Magyar originated from their ruling
clan only following their settlement in Hungary and this is derived
from the archaic FinnoUgrian term "mos" or according to others
"man's'e. n's' becomes gy in Hungarian followed by the ancient
collective/plural designator "eri". Earlier recorded variations of
the name confirm this transition over time. Occasional captured
foreigners were also used as servants/slaves (*orja), who
eventually became part of the family. Theterm slave is perhaps an
overstatement for the meaning of the word, because it wasnt a
permanent fate for these people.For example the Hungarian term
"cseld" means servant, but a variation "csald" means family. This
word is originally Slavic in origin, but the link to "family" is
strictly from Hungarian. The FinnoUgrians were separated into
clans, and large families, who lived in different regions and often
lived in communal large houses by the whole extended family,
governed by the eldest competent male and female "chief/head" of
the family. Indications are that the females had considerable
freedom, which is reflected in mythology in which the goddesses
also had important function. It is true however that eventually
many of the eastern Ugrians were influenced by early Iranic
traditions, which tied lots of taboos to women, which had to do
with their so called impurity during menstruation. There are no
memories that this ever occurred with Hungarians, whose main pre
Christian traditions recalls the queen of heaven, called Boldog
Aszony, who was the goddess of fertility, birth, bounty,
agriculture etc, while the god of heaven Isten is probably derived
from spirit "iz" of the sky "ten". Hardly any other memories of the
ancient religion survived in Hungarian, indicating that it was
probably modified under the influence of early eastern
Christianity. The situation was quite different amongst the
northern FinnoUgrian people who were Christianized much later,
while some still cling on to old taboos and their shamanistic
beliefs, even if the religious belief is now shared and watered
down by Christian influences.
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It was a highly cooperative-socialistic society, which took care
of its own relations, when sick or out of luck, rather
thanconstantly punishing the poor and the weak, as in western
societies. Family meant the extended family and the clan.
Thegreatest tragedy was the loss of one's clan ties, one's support
network. The clans may have had to defend their territory against
nearby competitors. Historic references indicate that Finno-Ugrians
were generally very peaceful, and such territorial problems were
uncommon, but still must have occurred especially after the
encroachment first of the Altaic -Turkic people from the south east
and much later by the Slavs from the west. Their early contacts
with other Europeanswere at first trusting and non aggressive, with
lots of interactions and because the changes to their detriment
occurred over a long period of time, after both groups interacted
and benefited from each other. Many tribes were eventually absorbed
and or slowly moved or adapted as the spreading of agriculture
pushed the hunters out of the south-central regions of Europe.
Hunters by nature required very large territories to survive and
cannot live in concentrated groups. The lack of concentrated
populations prevented armed resistance to the early spreading of
farming communities of the later foreign invaders. Perhaps this was
done in a peaceful manner where to a hunter it was much easier to
just adapt or move to new hunting grounds rather than to protect a
now depleted area against a much more massive population. The
possibility of new diseases introduced by a society that lived
concentrated must be also considered, with the devastatingresults
that we have seen in America, among the American Indians, who first
came into contact with Europeans. Since the EU18 FinnoUgrian
haplotypes do share an ancestor genetic branch with American
Indians, it is even more likely that similar problems were
encountered from the people of southern origin, except it didnt
occur at such a massive scale in such a short time period.
There is evidence however that the languages of northern Europe
did adopt many terms from the older FinnoUgrian populations that
they displaced and the future indo European language groups are
based predominantly upon the geneticdescendants of the earlier
FinnoUgrians whom they converted. All of this indicates a peaceful
conversion rather than massive conquests. This picture is totally
in contrast to the idea of a warlike invasion of the "Kurgan
People" who quickly enslaved everyone forcing them to speak their
language. The people of Europe were not primitive and would have
been able to resist such pressures, and indeed they must have. The
claims that no FinnoUgrian substratum is shown in Germanic is a
very false and biased picture, because no attempts at an in depth
study of this has been made, while most shared terms with
FinnoUgrian and IndoEuropean is automatically assumed to be from
IndoEuropea. The simple fact is that one finds if one looks and if
there is a bias against an idea then the occasional accidental
discovery is also often ignored. The glimmering of change against
this early nationalistic attitude is observable at times, but one
has to look extremely hard to find it.
Terms for towns and buildings
FinnUgor ki==dwelling (hely)EmeGir/Sumer ki_ =place, town,earth;
kal-am = place, land (of Sumer);EmeSal/Sumer ka.na. =place, land
(of Sumer)[this also shows the lost L N ]Magyar/Hung hely =place,
town;Vogul/Mansi kwel,kl =house;Finn/Suomi kyl =house,village
(arch);Estonian kyla =village;Penuitan kewel=house/Penuitan
(Californian);
ALTAIC gul=home/Osman; kl=hut/Ewenki
FinnUgor kota == house , room (of house) , tent , family~clan
EmeGir/Sumer gd=nest; (ku)e 3=tent; _e_, __ house;
git-lam=m.spouse;EmeSal/Sumer _ ~ ga_ =houseMagyar/Hung hz=house,
room, family; haz-a =homeland; hz-as=married;Ostyak/Khan
xot=houseCherem/Mari kdhe =summer houseVotyak/Udm ka_, ko_, korka
=house (kor=beam of house)Zuryen/Komi ka,ko, kerka =houseMordvin
kudo =houseFinn/Suomi koti =home; kota=hut, cook house;Estonian
koda =summer houseLapp/Saami goatte=tent, hutEtruskan catte=cabin
[b/b 128];kate-kril =return home; ceus =family, community;
ALTAIC kent=village/Turkish; Etruscan > Latin > Germanic
and Romance languages borrowed the casa/house terms replacingthe
original IndoEuropean term "domo" (domicile) in some language
groups.
FinnUgor lakka = shelter, eaves, roof (house)EmeGir/Sumer
?dak-kan =living quarter (dh>d? rather than *l>d)Magyar/Hung
lak =renters quarters(arch) >
apartment>abode>dweling,dwell;Finn/Suomi lakka=attic,
protruding eaves;
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Estonian lakk =deck,shade,long hair,mane;
FinnUgor dje =(or adh'e) bed , sleeping place
(house)EmeGir/Sumer _da-g=resting place; u-de=dream ; (nd, n_
=bed,lie together;)Magyar/Hung gy=bedVogul/Mansi a-t=bedVotyak/Udm
wa-s=to spread sheets, coverletsZuryen/Komi vo=bed cover,
feltFinn/Suomi voodi=bedEstonian voodi=bedALTAIC *=tent, house
;
FinnUgor owe == opening > window , door EmeGir/Sumer ab_
=window, niche; ?abul=gate;Magyar/Hung ab-lak=window (luk~lik
>lak =hole,opening) [Supposedly Slavic] Vogul/Mansi
aawi=door;Ostyak/Khan ow =door, window space, mouth of a river,
blow holeCherem/Mari ama-sa, oma-sa, op-sa (w~m) =door;Finn/Suomi
ovi=door
Estonian ava-ta=entrance; ovi=door;Samoyed ia=/Ee;
=door/Selkup;FinnUgor padhe == wall , dam EmeGir/Sumer bad 3
=wallMagyar/Hung fal=wall (dh >l)Vogul/Mansi
pat,pa=dam,weirFinn/Suomi pato=dam,wallLapp/Saami
buoo=dam,enclosure,weirALTAIC *p'do=wall/Altaic;
padi-ral=wall/Tungusic
FinnUgor pent == cover , close , lid , roof > *pent-ele= roof
(house)EmeGir/Sumer bad 3 = top, as in kur-bad 3 = mountain
top/roof;Magyar/Hung fed~fd=to cover; fed-l ~ fd-l=roof, cover, lid
;?pad-ls=attic;Vogul/Mansi pat- =to hide; pnt-l=roof;Ostyak/Khan
pent- =to cover, close, shut,;Votyak/Udm pod- =shut the
door;Zuryen/Komi pd- =to close, shut; pd-lal=to close, shut,
cover;Etruskan pen-na, penu-na, pee, penz-nas = to
cover;/Alinei
FinnUgor we == switch , shaft , frame , lattice > town
(house)anc Siberian wos = townEmeGir/Sumer _u=support, foundation,
_u 8=base blk] Magyar/Hung vz= frame,structure; vac-ok=primitive
shelter; vessz- =shaft, switch, a shoot;Vogul/Mansi _o,
uaseOstyak/Khan _uaeCherem/Mari ase =shaft, beamLapp/Saami
v-os=frame of buildngEtruscan vei(s) = lattice like weir for
catching trout; (vejsze)
FinnUgor lppe ==(lppe) cover , roof , bedeck, primitive
shelter-home (v)EmeGir/Sumr la_l =cover, hang, ;Magyar/Hung
lep=cover,inundate; lep-ed-=coverlet; lla=curtain(dial);Vogul/Mansi
lpi =cover, bedeck;Ostyak/Khan tp=sleeping tent; shed for drying
fish; ip=sleeping tent;Cherem/Mari lebh-dhe=deck; lep,tep ;
lews=roof,shelter,shed,coverlet;Votyak/Udm ip=cover up, roof over;
ipet=roof; cover,tent;Zuryen/Komi lep, leb =edge,rim,
shelter;Mordvin leb, lepLapp/Saami liehppa=tent of the most simple
construction; primitive shelter;
Because most of the early technological innovations in Europe
originally started in the far south in Mesopotamia, the last and
most isolated northern FinnoUgrians were usually the last to learn
of them and the last to benefit from them. Yet by the time of the
Andronovo Culture of eastern Russia [2000BC] around the Ural
Mountains, the working of
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copper and bronze started to spread amongst them, mainly from
the east. The use of copper and bronze was not simply an import
item from the east, but included the tools to form the metals also.
Various such moulds and tools have been found by archeologists. The
Andronovo Culture spread out from the area of the south eastern
Ural Mountains to eventually include areas north of Iran and the
Altai Mountain areas. They are often claimed to be all Iranic
Scythians, but in fact these areas are historically FinnoUgrian in
the north west, Altaic in the east and Iranic in the south, with
several language dialects of these groups represented. The early
Scythians however in the early phases were not Iranic but Turkic in
origin, who were displaced later by the Iranic Sarmatians [Strubna
Culture]. This however is far from an accepted fact yet, even
though some of the evidence points that way. The metal names of the
Finno Ugrians probably come from this Bronze Age period of history,
which we call the "Andronovo Culture" complex and appear to be
imported names from the direction of the Caucasus Mountains rather
than from Iranians. Yet if all of the Andronovo Culture was truly
Iranic (Ossetic) then the terms should all be Iranic also. This is
not the case however. The Bronze Culture of the Caucasus had an
even earlier bronze age than Eastern and Central Europe and
bordered on the territory ofthe early Cimmerians, who spread it
north. Similar metal names were also found in Sumerian, which
brought it south with them to southern Mesopotamia, from the
Caucasus Area, as they slowly migrated south from the north. Their
myths of origin was from the mythical northern "Tilmun", from
beyond the headwaters of the great rivers of Mesopotamia.
FinnUgor wolne == tin [Eastern & central FinnoUgrian area
only]EmeGir/Sumer _an-na=tin; unu 2 =adornment, jewelry;Magyar/Hung
_n_ =tin [#w > blk] Vogul/Mansi _ln =gold, silver,
jewelryOstyak/Khan _olna =leadCherem/Mari wuln=lead, tin
FinnUgor krte == metal > iron > knife (metal) EmeGir/Sumer
gur 10,14=sickle; gri,gir 2=dagger,knife,sword;
gu~ku=metal;EmeSal/Sumer me.er=dagger [g>m dialectical
change]Magyar/Hung kard =swordVogul/Mansi keer =ironOstyak/Khan
koert=iron, metalCherem/Mari krt-e =ironVotyak/Udm kort
=ironEtruscan xaru, xaru-n =cutter,smasher[az96]; ma-xaira =curved
saber
FinnUgor ratu == copper (metal) [Usually thought to be a loan
word, explained from IE word red.]EmeGir/Sumer
u-ru-du=copperMagyar/Hung rz=copper; ( -t>z)Finn/Suomi
ratu-a=copper
FinnUgor sarae == gold , shiny , radiant (color) EmeGir/Sumr
_ara 4=shine, bright, clearMagyar/Hung _ar-any =gold; sr-arany=
yellow gold; _r=shine,blaze;Vogul/Mansi tar-i =copperOstyak/Khan
lor=brass, copper;Cherem/Mari rti=gold;Votyak/Udm
zari=gold;Zuryen/Komi zari=gold < from Ugrian;Mordvin sr'ne
=gold;Etruscan atran-anes=gold (ta at metathesis)
Generally thought to be an Iranic loan word, but the etymology
is compatible with FU also
and common in FU and not in IndoEuropean. This was probably a
fairly early name sinceeven Hurrian has a similar word for it
"hiarune?". The Dravidian term ap-arany =refined gold is also quite
similar but, could be a loan from Iranic. The important thing to
consider is that the word can be explained or etymologized from
Ugrian also. *kwor=sunlight, shine > _r=shine blaze +
nukke=material. So the complete form in Hungarian would be
ra_+any-ag, where the trailing archaic adjectival suffix -ke was
dropped as it normally has been in most words, and only remaining
occasionally as -og in a few adjective based words.
FinnUgor wa-ke = iron ? very valuable metal, as iron was very
rare. EmeGir/Sumr g-us-kin =a very valuable metal, some think its
gold, others unsure; (gu-us-kin); kin=valuable stone,
gu=metal.Magyar/Hung vass =ironVogul/Mansi we =tin,lead;Ostyak/Khan
u, u=iron,metal,gold;
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Zuryen/Komi ozi =tin;Finn/Suomi vaski =ore, copper,
bronze;Estonian vask =copper, "messing"Lapp/Saami vik, vieke =
copper;
Iron was known and used fairly early, but in a very small
amounts at first. It was rare and precious at firstprobably taken
from meteoric rocks.
FinnUgor jo == planing iron , shaver , to scrape , shave
EmeGir/Sumr gur 10,14 =sicle < shaver,cutter; gur
5=separate,divide; [j>g or blk]Magyar/Hung gyal=wood plane,
gyal-ul=shaves off; [r>l] nyr=shave(j~gy~ny early Medieval
dialectical variations)Vogul/Mansi iarr =to plane, scrape, shave;
ior=plane, scratch;
Northern UgriansThe Ugrians at one time occupied most of the
western portion of the Urals mountains and there they also adopted
the horse cultures that developed in the region. Even the northern
Ugrians also adapted several features of this culture. Due to their
northern position and the following severe geological weather
changes their territories became too cold to continue this way of
life, and they went even further north-east to find better hunting
grounds to compensate for this loss. They crossed into Asia.
Further cooling of the climate eventually trapped them into a polar
lifestyle. Even though they were originally horsemen also and have
common words for chariot, horse, saddle with Hungarian, which means
that their northern spreading had to be only a few thousands of
years ago, when these things became known. Much laterin time these
northern Ob Ugrians also absorbed a sizeable eastern Mongoloid
ethnic group which came from the south east in Siberia, the
Samoyeds. They probably also came in contact with the Kets who are
believed by some to be the ancestors of the Huns, who spread from
here toward the boundaries of China. Hunish linguistic data from
early Chinesehistoric documents show an affinity to this language
type. The Samoyeds who came from the east and changed the racial
characteristics of the Ob Ugrians over time. It has often been
claimed by the Hungarian FinnoUgrian scholars thatHungarian also
went north with the ObUgrians, and later moved south. However there
is no trace of any Siberian Mongoloid features or genetic markers
between them, as is found amongst the Ob Ugrians, nor any sign that
they were ever familiar with the plant and animal life of the
arctic The ObUgrian languages also changed so markedly that the
grammar and morphology of Hungarian is closer to other FinnUgor
languages rather than Ob Ugrian. The Ob Ugrian vocabulary shares
some extra words with Hungarian that are not found amongst other
FinnoUgrians, but its grammar is much simpler and less similar to
Hungarian than are other FinnoUgrian languages like the Permian
branch.
It is very strange and unreasonable, that these Ob Ugrians are
often claimed to be the most representative of the old
FinnoUgrians, when in reality they are the most unlike most
FinnoUgrians, genetically, culturally and linguistically. Their
main uniqueness is that, they have preserved a very ancient and
primitive way of life the longest, which in the very distant past
was common to most people of those times. For that reason, they are
used as a prime example, by people who want to emphasize the
primitive and belittle the FinnoUgrians in general and also to push
them out of Europe and treat them as late interlopers. In this way
they can usually be ignored in any historical study of Europe, and
they most definitely have been ignored over the centuries, making
it easier for the growing Slavic Russian Empire to take their lands
and force their ways and religions upon them, just like the
Americans have marginalized the American Indians. Because of their
long isolation, the Ob Ugrians preserved the ancient cults and
myths of the distant past, like noothers, as well as the
terminology that went with it.
Indications are that the Ob Ugrians were a much larger people in
the past and many of them spread into the far east in prehistoric
times and even crossed into western north America, founding the
Penuitan language family in America. On the eastern shores of Asia
we find such groups as the Yuka-gir, which is a marginally
FinnoUgrian language with many shared words, that are often listed
in major FinnoUgrian comparative dictionaries. Their closest
relatives in America arethe Californian Penuitan language family of
central California, however even the Maya and the Mound Builder
culturesof south central USA are also members of the Penuitan
Indian language family. An unusual belief of these cultures is that
many have memories of white skinned gods. The early Spanish
invaders have found some islands of the coast of Mexico that had
white skinned Indians on them. Another even stranger coincidence is
that the Ob Ugrians living on the edge of eastern Europe, in time
became a mixed race that resembled the North American Indians to
such a large degree that their racial designation became
"Americanoid". This is a mixed type between Caucasian and northern
Siberian Mongoloid elements. Some of their features are actually
totally uncommon among eastern or southern Mongoloid groups, even
though they live closer to the American continent.
Southern Ugrians
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I am using the term Ugrian, which in many ways is a historical
misnomer, simply to tie together the various languages that are
labeled this way today, plus a few that are thought to be isolated
but seem to me to be related also. If I invented a newer terms, it
would not be recognizable by anyone. The uniqueness of the southern
Ugrians is that they have had to survive a very long history of
invasions from the east as well as from the west, along with many
contacts with the early southern cultures of the Near East, and the
Mediterranean coast while at the same time their northern relatives
lived much longer in an undisturbed state. The consequences of this
was that most of the southern FinnoUgrians have disappeared from
history.Some like the eastern Kamas, Koibal, Karagas, Taigi,
Khakas, Motor, and Tuva became Turkicized and some later even
Mongolized. The western Merja, Muroma, Meschera, Valdai Finns,
Ryazan-Peskov and Vote became Russified. These were only the latest
casualties and not from ancient times, since the Slavs only began
to spread out from central Europe in the 600s.
FinnUgor Tribes in the 800s
Hungarians According to Hungarian legends, the Hungarians never
went far north with their Ob Ugrian relations and dont have
anytraditional recollections of such an event or any far northern
cultural or racial features that tie them to the northern
FinnoUgrians, such as the common TAT-C genetic chromosome type.
They never mixed with any northern mongoloid people, like the Lapps
and Samoyeds. and retained their horse herding and riding and
herding culture along with basic agriculture. After their
separation from the northern Ugrians they probably went further
south and came under stronger Iranic and Turkic influence. Their
early agricultural terms are not related to IndoEuropean which
indicates that the people further south were not Indo Europeans at
the time, despite the often claimed Iranic language of the
Scythians. Instead these words are claimed to be related to Turkic,
of the western Chuvash type. At this point their ties to their
northern Ugrian relations became almost broken, even though there
were still ties to the other western FinnoUgrians through trade,
during the Andronovo Culture's bronze age, when they spread metal
working among the FinnoUgrians ofthe west from the east.
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Andronovo Culture Areas, started along the Eastern Ural Mtns and
had 3 phases.1.Sinastra-Petrovka Culture 2000-1600
BC2.Alakul-Federovo Culture 1500-1300 BC3.Sargary-Alexeeva Culture
1200-1000 BC.
According to Hungarian legends, their area of origin, or ruling
center was from the area west of here near the Azov Sea,which is a
large semi enclosed inlet of the Don River to the northern Black
Sea, whose peninsula is the Crimea. They probably moved there from
the north east, near the south western part of the Ural mountains
and the river Kama, where some small group of them survived, long
after the main body of the Hungarians had left. They were later
found by the Hungarian friar Julianus, who was an emissary from
Hungary, in the 13th century, just before the coming of the
Mongols. He wrote that they still spoke perfectly understandable
Hungarian after hundreds of years of separation. The Mongol attacks
dispersed them and the area later became Turkicized by the Tatars.
This place was later called Magna Hungaria "the original Hungary"
by the mapmakers of Medieval Europe. The assumption that this was
their original homeland of course had no proof, only that there was
a tribe of them living in that area once, just as there were other
Hungarians living south of the Caucasus Mountains, under the
geographic name Sabartu Asfalu.
It is from their contacts in the area of the Sea of Azov, that
Hungarian tradition mentioned in the "Legend of the Stagg",
associates the Hungarian people with the later Scythians and then
later, with the Huns, simply because these nomads later came from
the east and ruled over them and intermixed with. In the case of
the Hungarians, this mixing didnt obliterate their language, but it
did introduce a lot of new words from the new groups, such as
titles of rulers and ruling institutions, and several domesticated
animal names, horse equipment as well as the words for plough,
apple, pear, wheat, oats, peas and more. Considering the fact that
the Scythians are believed today to be Iranic, it is very strange
thattheir influence was so much less then the Turks and Huns who
only came west supposedly after 400AD. This is a drop in the bucket
in comparison to the Scythians who were there for over a thousand
years. The explanation is that only a small portion of the so
called Scythians were Iranic and the rest were a western branch of
the early Turkic people.
Several southern FinnoUgrians of the area were later absorbed by
these Turkic languages or at least also acquired a lot of new words
from them. Perhaps some were even absorbed by Hungarians. According
to the Hungarian "Legend of theStagg", from this period, the
ancestors of the early Hungarians mixed with two other major
groups, one of which were the northern Iranian Ossets, who were
also living near the Southern Ural Mountains once and were known as
the Alans by the Hungarians. They were known to be fair skined,
light hair color, unlike most Iranians and more like the northern
Finnougrians. It is normally the Ossets who are claimed to be the
Sarmatians mentioned by the early Greeks, and who have became the
prime examples of the so called IndoEuropean Scythians. This is a
false idea, since the Sarmatians were but one branch, perhaps even
a very mixed and unique branch of the Iranic people. The majority
of the so called Scythians I believe were early western Turkic
groups, most of whom eventually became absorbed into the many local
peoples of the area that they once ruled.
Then there were the later Huns, coming from Asia in the late
300s, who were very small in numbers in proportion to the
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people of their huge empire, according to Hungarian
archeologists Pl Liptk, who studied the graves of this period in
Hungary in detail. Many of the leading clans of the Avar Huns were
found to be mixed Mongoloid, but the vast majorityof the people
under their rule, the soldiers and common people were Caucasians.
According to some (***) old Slavic Chronicles the Ephtalite "White"
Huns were claimed to be white skinned, living in towns and cities
and had their own alphabet, rather than being the typical "nomads"
and the often used and abused term "barbarian", which at that time
only meant foreigner or non-city dweller in Latin. The term is
normally applied to any alien type in early Europe and has nothing
to do with cultural level or religious beliefs. It would be
misleading to assume that the FinnoUgrians didnt already have a
very long history living near various Altaic groups, long before
the far eastern Huns arrived. It is from the white Hun language
that the chief offices of state in Hungarian derived from. The
Hungarian leadership was under atripartate system, with the Kende
=head of the royal house and head of the religion, the Gyula was
the main political power and the head of the military, the Horka
was the chief judge and ruler of the common people. Hungarian also
seems to have the earlier Scythian terms for these same
institutions, which today are thought to be common names, rather
than titles. The works of Herodotus (500BC) explain the Scythian
names of the three sons of the first Scythian, the "son of god" =
Targita- as Leip-oxis, Arp-oxais, and Col-exis. The three leader
titles can be linked to these names also. Names like rp-d, the head
of the military of the Hungarians, was known as Jula in Hunish,
Lev-edi (Leip-ox) the head of the royal clan and religion, and
Kola-xi which was the same term as the Hun Gyula, the commander in
chiefof the armies. This last term was also shared by the later
"mixed" Kazar Turks, and the white Huns, who conquered northern
India and are referred to locally as Gol-as and also as Ku-jula.
The terms are also found among the early Etruscans, whose
orthography uses the Z instead of the DJ, resulting in Zilat
(Gyula), Comte (Kende), according to Mario Alinei. The Kazars Turks
were of a very mixed origin and partly originating from local
people, rather than just the eastern Turks, who represented mainly
their leadership. They are normally remembered for the fact that
their leadersadopted the Jewish faith, to retain their independence
from Christian and Muslim domination, which always came with a high
cost.
It is very likely that the early Scythians were actually also
western Turkic group, due the very early influences that Altaic
languages had upon Hungarian and the other Ugrians, which saved
some very archaic terms from proto Altaic words in their
vocabulary. If they weren't present in Europe at a very early age
none of this could have happened, since the early ObUgrian
spreading into Asia took a very northern route and most never came
back to share the new vocabulary they may have gotten there. The
Turkic inroads were on the steppes much further south of the early
Ugrians,so they wouldnt have come into contact until much later. I
wonder whether the majority of these ancient western Altaic tribes
were absorbed or mixed with the southern Ugrian tribes, because few
of them survived in the interim period before the demise of the
Scythians at the hands of the "Indo European" Sarmatians and the
coming of the Huns and the eastern Turks. One of the Turkic tribes,
which did survive and which is quite unique among Turkic languages
in its phonetics, and even in its vocabulary is Chuvash. It is
precisely this dialect that a lot of Hungarian loanwords are
relatedto. Others like the extinct early Bulgar Turks and Kazar
languages are also suspected to be partially related to it,
although all of them were influenced by the later eastern Turks
that returned from the east with the Huns.
It is believed that these Huns originated from the "Hsiung Nu",
who ruled a vast area north and east of China for a long time,
until their conquest by the Chinese, which caused their western
migrations and their shorter lived successive empires in north
eastern Iran, north India and then in Europe. They appear to be a
special branch of the Turkic people that went to live in eastern
Asia then returned later. The precise reasons for their eastern
migration aren't known, but may have something to do also with
climactic changes, that dried out the steppes? Turks are a
genetically mixed people,with Caucasian and some oriental features.
In Hungary their presence is usually associated with the "Turanid"
type, found amongst the various Turkic elements like the Cumans and
Petchegens, that allied themselves with the incoming eastern
Hungarians and settled in Hungary also. Their racial
characteristics represent less than 5% of the population today.
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The greatly tauted victory over the Huns at Chalons, can only be
described as a draw, since next year Attila marched on Rome itself.
Following the so called victory, the Huns stayed around longer and
then returned home without any hindrance from the Roman alliance.
That doesn't sound like a victory.
Early Hungarians that lived in the east are mentioned by several
early Turkic documents and rock monuments, and tied to various
Turkic empires of the ancient past. They however were probably an
eastern branch of the Hungarians, which over time were absorbed by
the Turks and lost to the later Hungarian nation forever, just as
another Hungarian group living in Subartu in north eastern
Mesopotamia in Great Armenia was lost eventually a few hundreds of
years after the movement to retake control of Hungary. They were
last visited by the Christian friar Otto, as an emissary of the
Hungarian king.
Hungarian graves of the period of their settlement into central
Europe from the nearby Ukraine and Transylvania, are pure Caucasian
types, and the same can be said of the early busts that represented
the early Hungarian kings. Even though the Arpad house kings are
claimed to be descendants of Atilla there is not a shred of eastern
mongoloid traits in them. Their ally peoples however were more
mixed. (***) Hungarian archeologists who worked in Southern Russia
andbecame familiar with the Scythian remains there, have claimed
that the closest match to the typical Hungarian types are the
remains of the early Sarmatian Scythians, who were also the
ancestors of the Alans and not to any of today's northern
FinnoUgrian nationalities. The Alans are often tied to the eastern
Iranian Sarmatian branch of the IndoEuropean language types, who
also moved to Europe and were for a long time remembered as the
leaders of the Poles, and the Chroatians, from the east. These two
Slavic nationalities are now the closest racially to Hungarian EU19
male chromosome types, besides the FinnoUgrian Udmurts, showing
their ancient origins from eastern Europe. The long and fruitful
interaction of Hungarians with these neighboring nations also could
have caused this to a lesser degree.The Sarmatians had major
settlements in the Carpathian Basin, where Hungary is. Branches of
them however moved west under the leadership of the Huns, during
their western campaigns lead by Attila and stayed behind rather
than returning after the battles.
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1000 AD Europe, where Hungary is an independent kingdom, which
would not submit to the "Holy Roman Empire" under German rule.
Although they tried to conquer the kingdom several times they
failed. Hungarians however raided Germany and Western Europe as far
as Spain until the defenses of the west were able to adapt to foil
their tactics. The greatest losses were due to lies and deception
when the Germans asked for their aid and then attacked them.
The Romans also conscripted some of the Sarmatians into their
cavalry and settled them in early England. We can presume that some
of them were from the "Caliburnus" tribe of smiths, that gave the
name to the sword of Arthur, "excalibur" along with several of the
key characters of the members of the knights of the Round Table and
the traditionsof the sword of God in the rock. They were the
founders of the new style of armored heavy cavalry and the
associated customs of chivalry. This group is better remembered
under the name Alan in England and in southern France the area and
a dialect known as "Cat-alan". We have mentioned them several times
already in this article. They originate from east of the Ural
Mountains and lived as far south as the Aral Sea at times,
eventually a small group settling in the Caucasus mountains and
known as the Ossets.
Religion
The ancient religions of all of mankind have a lot of commonly
shared features, and most of these are related to the oldest
religion of mankind, shamanism. We can find it from Africa to Early
Europe and the Americas and Australia. These basic features are
later transmuted by the later religions, but can often be
recognized to be from their earlier shamanistic origins. Shamanism
believes in the ties between all living things along with the
guiding spirits of the
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ancestors. It is "spiritualism" in its most basic form.
Spiritualism not just of humans, but also totemic animals, the
earth,the sky, the wind and the whole cosmos. Therefore it was not
unexpected to have a hierarchy of gods starting from the greatest
"universe" down to the smallest things, associated with heaven, the
sky, the sun, moon, earth, stars, the atmosphere, wind, the
mountains, rivers, water, fire, as well as the ancestors of each
clan. There was an uncountable number of guiding spirits from the
simplest and smallest things to the largest.
Not much remains from the earliest phases of this religion,
except the variations among the later FinnoUgrians of the north,
who only adapted Christianity in the last few hundred years and
even then maintained for a long time many of their shamanistic
taboos and customs. Very little of that however survived in
Hungarian, following over 1,000 years of Christianity. What did
survive were religious terms mainly, which seemed to have been
modified by Christian influences. Hungarian religious terms are
predominantly of eastern origin and only European when unique
Christian terms were needed that couldnt be translated.
The creation of the world, heaven and earth united, was from the
heavenly sea, which was common in many ancient traditions. This
heavenly sea can be interpreted to mean the cosmos. The great
mother of the physical world was called ANKE Patay, who was simply
renamed as AN-KI in Sumerian and was interpreted to be a combined
form of AN meaning heaven and KI meaning earth and place. In
evaluating these terms it becomes clear that both have earlier
FinnoUgrian etymologies because the god of heaven is AN in Sumerian
, which came from FinnoUgrian *saNe, where the lead S is often
dropped, which results in Sumerian word for heaven, sky while
Sumerian "Ki" came from *kil'a meaning place. In looking for an
equivalent of these names in Etruscan, it is easy to recognize that
the god of the highest sky or heaven, was also called "Ani" by the
Etruscans. This became the Latin god Janus (ianus), who gave his
name to the month of January in the Etrusco-Roman calendar.
The sky and heavens: Numa, in ObUgrian represented the highest
chief god known as Numi Torem. In the Finnic group the lead N was
replaced by Y (J) and the name became Juma, Jumala, Jumal. In
Etruscan this became Uni, whichin Latin became Juno, the queen of
heaven and the chief goddess. In Sumerian Nammu was the mother of
the old gods, the celestial sea, the universe, which is the source
of all. It is still only a conjecture whether the Latin Numa, could
have come from Etruscan, which is linked to the descendant
languages of FinnoUgrians. In both Sumerian and FinnoUgrian the
term num means high.
The air god Ilma, was the son of the sky god, who was the source
of the great god of the Finns, called "Ilma-rinen", who taking on
one of the main functions of the air god, as creator, became the
blacksmith of the gods and over time lost his main ties with the
wind which is clearly in his name. In Hungarian the internal "m"
often becomes "v", and the metathesis of the lead syllable created
the word for air-atmosphere in the form il-ma >> le-ma >
leve-g =air. The very same word in Sumerian absorbed the l, by the
adjacent nasal m, resulting in Imi which also meant "wind" and is
the source of one of their famous wind gods that we still are
familiar with becoming En + IMI + ra, which is the source of the
Sumerian wind god *en-imi-ur-ta >*n-im-ur-ta >>NinUr-ta
and also Nimrud, of the Bible. In his Assyrian form Nimrud also
became a sun god, because he was already associated with the heat
of the southern wind in Sumerian times. The wife of Nimrud in
Assyrian documents already used the name related to Hungarian Eneh,
Enuta name, alongwith the Sumerian BAU name showing a totally
unexpected consistency of legends, which imply some kind of ties
with northern Mesopotamia.
In FinnoUgrian there was another term, which also meant warm
breath/spirit/soul which normally was associated with all living
things, however in Sumerian, this became their generic word for
"breath/spirit" as well as "wind", and thus it became the name of
the chief god of earth, the air god, in the form of En "Lil", from
the FinnoUgrian word "*leile". He was the chief god after An lost
his preeminence, and was also a major creator. Under him were also
several wind gods, like the gods of the north wind, south wind and
so on. It is no wonder that under Biblical influence the Hungarians
associated their ancient national god with Nimrod, since their wind
-spirit god Nemere already reflected a similar word that also
allowed the name to be interpreted also as the "progenitor" of the
people, the nation. The Sumerian word mer 2, mir 2 meant storm and
wind in Sumerian. Therefore this idea wasnt as new as it may seem,
since even the early Armenians recorded that the local "Madjars"
(Hungarians), living in Greater Armenia in the Middle Ages are
believed to be the descendants of Nimrud, who supposedly lived in
ancient times in northern Mesopotamia, where the Assyrian cities of
Nimrud and Ninus (his son) recall his cults. (Modern Encyclopedia
of Islam) The name is simply a modification and variation of the
older Ugrian clan god, whom the ObUgrians already had as the god of
hunting, forestsand protector of man, under the name "Menke" and
which the early Hungarian called also called Mn-rot, rather than
Nimrud.
In Sumerian mythology Nimrud was the husband of the goddess Bau,
who was a very prominent old goddess of the Sumerians, known for
her healing, childbirth, the source of food and plenty. If we ad
the Sumerian word "dug" to her name, which means happyness and sex,
then it results in the Hungarian word with the same meaning, plus
more (Bodog> modern Boldog) She was to Hungarians their chief
goddess, the protector of families, the giver of life, the
protector ofmothers and the childbirth as well as the patroness of
agriculture. The only possible link to her name besides Hungarian
is the Mordvinian mother goddess Pak-se Patay, which uses an
archaic term *pakke found in a lot of related languages and
referring to the bursting forth of life from the seed or becoming
pregnant, as in the Hungarian "fak-ad, fog-ant". No other memory of
her name exists amongst the northern FinnoUgrians, who normally
call the great mother goddess by
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terms like Kaltes or Kildis-in, which is similar to the Sumerian
Gal-ama meaning "great mother", which was probably another name for
the goddess Bau. The Finno Ugrian term "kl" means dawn, to arise,
to ford-cross over, etc just as Sumerian "Gal-am" can have these
same meanings. She is also known by the Etruscans as the goddess
"Cel" as well as "Thes-an". This same term is found in Hungarian
"kel-et" and means east, the place of the rising of the sun, while
"Kel" means to arise. In Ugrian mythology Kal-tes is the wife of
the chief god, the god of heaven, and she is the giver and ender of
life, and the goddess of fate.
Most of the early Finno Ugrians weren't yet familiar with the
ocean and their name for sea or lake were much the same. Therefore
none of them had anything equivalent to the Sea God, but they did
have water and river gods that sometimes evolved to become Sea Gods
in their later homes. Similarly the Sumerian god En-Ki is sometimes
associated with the sea god by people today. He was also called EA
and referred more to the source of underground fresh water, called
"engur" and the source of rivers, than to a saltwater sea. The
Sumerian term EA is quite similar sounding to the FinnoUgrian term
"yo(ki)" meaning river. Similarly the Etruscan sea god "Neth-uns"
was originally the god of springs and wells, before becoming a sea
god in Italy. The word appears related to Hungarian "Ned" which
means wetness, moisture. Later it adopted some of the Greek
symbolism related to Neptune, due to strong Greek cultural
influence in their region of the world. Hungarian borrowed the term
for sea from Turkic to differentiate a large sea "tenger", from a
lake "t" and never developed a Sea God in spite of the fact they
lived for a long time next to the Caspean and Black Sea. Finnish
also has various water spirits, but these weren't sea gods. They
also adopted a foreign word "mer" to mean sea, rather than use the
old FinnoUgrian term for a large lake/sea "*towe".
The Sun and the Moon gods had many names in different groups.
The Sumerians called the Sun god and time god Utu, since the name
also referred to time and day "ud". In Turkish "d" also refers to
the sun and time, as in Hungarian "id" is time. In Etruscan time is
"itu" and is the source of the Latin term for a division of time
"ides". The Etruscan sun god or the god of the sunrise, was called
Cathe and is derived from the Finno Ugrian word for dawn, morning
"kdhe ", which became (dh>l) "hol"-nap in Hungarian, meaning
tomorrow, the coming sun rise.
The curious thing about the sun and the moon names are that
their names are often swapped in different major branches of these
languages. For example in FinnoUgrian the word for moon is "kunke"
while in Altaic-Turkic "kn" means sun. Similarly the word "nay" in
FinnoUgrian refers to fire, light and the sun and is the source of
Hungarian word "na-p" meaning both the sun and day. Yet in Sumerian
the same word Na11=light, fire but is the name of the father of the
sun, which was believed to be the Moon God, in the reduplicated
form of "Na-na". The closest FinnoUgrian equivalent of the Sumerian
usage of the NaNa name is the Mordvinian moon god "NA-zar-om Paz".
The Sumerians didnt have a symbol for the phoneme "Y" and often
dropped such trailing liquid sounds. The other Sumerian name for
the sun god was "en-Zu", which simply meant the "wise lord", based
on another common word esze=mind,smart in Hungarian. In most
FinnoUgrian mythologies the Sun was a young male and the Moon was
an old woman, while in Sumerian there was a couple, husband and
wife, representing the moon.
In Sumerian the moon god and goddess also had two famous
daughters, the beautiful goddess of love and war Inana and her
older sister, the queen of the underworld Eres Ki-Gal, the " queen
of the great earth". KiGal also mean the lower earth or underworld,
a concept of the description of the world contrasted with the upper
realm of heaven, were common with FinnoUgrian mythology and was
symbolized by the earth goddess whose Ob Ugrian name was Joli
Tarem, which meant exactly the same thing as Sumerian. This creates
a suspicion that perhaps the Sumerian word Gal was pronounced in
two different ways, as Gal=big and Jal=below. In general it was
found that FinnoUgrian protowordswith J are translated to G or
sometimes dropped in Sumerian equivalents. While it is generally
thought that Eres Ki Gal was separate from the goddess of the
earth, known simply as Ki=earth,place, her name implies that they
were the same once. Her younger sister Inana representing the
fruitful, sensual, troublesome young woman and the older sister
Eres KiGal, the older and mature and trapped, jelous earth goddess,
from whose womb all the buried seeds germinate and arereborn in the
spring. The term "eret" in northern Mesopotamia referred not to a
queen or lady but to "germination" as it does in Hungarian "ered".
However "eres", may also be a distortion of "ur-asz-ony" meaning
lady or lord-lady, as is normally called in Hungarian and not to be
misunderstood with just any lady, but a queen. The Sumerian Emesal
dialectterm for lady /queen is gasan, which in old Hungarian was
identical in meaning with "aszony". The Modern Hungarian equivalent
of the Sumerian Inana is the modern Ilona, who is also the queen of
the fairies and also called Magyar Ilona in fairytales. There are
many place names that have her name it them. This is also related
to the Finnish Ilma-tar goddess. Her other Hungarian name was the
goddess "Szp Aszony", who was also a beautiful, but trouble making,
just like Inana. In Hungarian as well as Sumerian, the L and N at
times can be exchanged, allowing such duplication as "danol and
dalol" =sings. Such a change would allow Ilona to become Inona or
Inana. In Etruscan the closest equivalent of Inana is the goddess
Turan, whose name is quite similar to the designation for
gods/goddesses of the ObUgrians, known as Torem. She was the
goddess of love, health and fertility and her name appears to be
simply an archaic name meaning "goddess". Actually the Scythians
also seem to have called their god as Tar, if we assume that
thefirst Scythian he created by the sky god "TAR-Gita-us" simply
indicated the, clan of god, the nobility. Just as the Sumerians had
another sister to the goddess of love, associated with the
underworld and the dead, the Etruscans also had theirs, which was
called Ar-tume, the goddess of the night and death, and who was the
predecessor of the Greek Artemis, which they borrowed from their
northern Thracian neighbors. Both were also from the Scythian
Artim-paz which was mentioned by the ancient Greek historian
Herodotus. The etymology of "tume, teme" refers to burial and
the
-
dead in FinnoUgrian, Etruscan and Sumerian.
The god of waters EnKi is strangely linked with the god of
wisdom in Sumerian mythology. The two originally dont seem to have
any reason to be united and probably weren't. His various names
certainly dont indicate a similar concept at all. "EnKi" means the
lord of earth, not of water. He was also the co-creator of plants,
animals and mankind which normally was the domain of the chief god,
the air-sky god. There are also versions of the Sumerian myths that
indicate that the Air god indeed was also considered the creator,
which also brings into conflict the idea that EnKi was originally
considered the creator. If we concentrate on his main
characteristics however we are closer to the truth and original
form. Ea the watergod, seems related to "yo(ki)", the designation
for river and water in FinnoUgrian. Similarly as the allknowing
wisdom god and magician of the Sumerian gods, his name is also
quite similar to "Yav", the designation of healing shamans in
Hungarian. Trailing v sounds are often deleted and can become "YA".
This term is also related to Turkic *Yay-c'i, which referred to
shamans that not only practiced healing, but were prophets,
healers, and magicians. The prophets or fortune tellers, in
Hungarian have another variation in pronunciation which is "Y-s",
where the "s" ending is but an adjectival marker, so that the root
word is "Y". This also fits quite closely with the function of EA,
the magician of the Sumerian gods. The magical spells and the
teachings of the gods were given to humanity by Enki and were
called "Me"s. The word Me in Sumerian means many things, but based
upon the word for telling as well as the proclamation and
instructions of the gods and the methods and arts of civilization.
The situation is nearly the same in Finnougrian mythology, where
the following words nearly overlap in sound and function.
FinnoUgrian mona =to tell, to saySumerian me- =to say, to tell;
eme =languageHungarian mon-d=to say or tell
FinnoUgrian mac^e =to tell stories, religious
instructions.Sumerian me- =the instructions of the gods
Finnish mana =admonish, bewitch.. (a demonization of the old
words)Hungarian mese =fairy tales, religious tales originally.
Vogul/Mansi manse=myth
Ostyak/Khan mans =tell a tale, story(originally mythology)
Cherem/Mari mana-m=order, say, speak
Mordvin mua-ms=bewitch, ruin by witchcraft
Finn/Suomi manaa =admonish, warn; bewitch, curse, wish evil
to;
Estonian mana=abuse,curse,slander, indicate, give to
understand;
Lapp/Saami muone=appoint,order,prescribe,conjecture
Samoyed man=to talk
Penuitan monse=to tell,advise,inform;maccaw=to
speak,talk,lang
FinnUgor mus ==charm, enchant, magic (religion)
EmeGir/Sumr ma-ma =sorcerer,incantation; me =the god given words
& creations; mu=speak;
Magyar/Hung mv-sz =entertainer, mese=a story,fairy tale, m(v)
=creation; ?ima=prayer;
Vogul/Mansi mul- ,mut- = offer to the gods, prayer; ml=curse,
enchant;
Ostyak/Khan mut=pray; mul=the magic words;
Cherem/Mari mu=prophesy; mu-ed- =divine, prophesy, conjure,
practice magicALTAIC m>b b
Normally Enki gave these willingly, but sometimes the "me-s" of
civilization were taken by trickery from him, by the enchanting
lovely goddess Inana. It is a strange fact that the early
Sumerians, FinnoUgrians and the Etruscans viewed the many human
inventions as the gift of the gods, and not as an invention of man.
All new ideas came from gods, and making it possible to be made.
The family ties of Enki, the water god, has several similar gods
and goddesses in FinnoUgrian languages.
The god of spring, resurection, rebirth, death and shepherds in
Sumerian was known as Dumuzig, which later became Tamuz. In
FinnoUgrian the reconstructed word for spring is *towke, however it
is also seen that in several languages a nazal sound (n or m) is
used instead of the W. The Hungarian word for spring "tavasz" could
have derived from "tamuz", because of the m~ w alteration found in
old FU languages. In general this word refers to the warming of
spring or the flooding it causes. Besides this archaic link to the
word for spring, there is also a historic reference to this ancient
god in the old Transylvanian-Hungarian Chronicle. The "legend of
Chaba", writes of the protector and savior ofthe Transylvanian
Hungarians and supposedly he was the youngest son of Atilla, called
Chaba, who behaves much like
-
Dumuzig and comes back more than once from the netherworld, to
save his people. In the legend, Chaba "the shepherd"of the people,
prays to his god "Damachek", which is all too similar to the old
Sumerian name "Damuzig", to be coincidental. This name remained
into the Middle Ages in various sayings and curses, shortened to
Dama . (refer to dr Bobula Ida, The Sumerian Legend of the Stagg.)
Among other things Damuzig was also a shepherd and a shepherd king,
whose other names Saba also meant shepherd in Sumerian and are the
same in meaning as Csaba or Csobn, which in Turkic and old
Hungarian meant shepherd. The old FinnoUgrian word for sheep is
*use, while the Sumerian Emesal dialect form is "e.z", while pa or
ba is just a variation for head/chief/leader. This term has ties in
other languages as well, even in old Iranian, from which Slavic
borrowed it to mean just clan chief "dzupan". In Sumerian myths
Dumuzig is taken to the underworld every fall by force and with him
the plant life dies, due to lack of water and in spring he returns
and the plant life comes to life with the spring floods.
It is not at all inconceivable that Dumuzig originally was a god
of death and resurrection, and his name isn't so much from the word
for springtime when things get flooded, but from burial. This word
is in common with Sumerian, FinnoUgrian and Etruscan in the form of
"teme", and having a wide range of meaning from burying the dead to
stuffing into a small space. Tying this meaning to the end of
winter and his "resurrection" or return from the underworld results
in his dual nature. The following examples illustrate the usage of
the word, Etruscan teme-ra is grave, Hungarian teme-t is a
cemetary, Sumerian ki-tum=burial place (ki=place), Samoyed dimi=to
seal up and so on. Etruscans also had several underworld deities,
but the chief one was called Vol-Tuma, where "vol-" refers to the
inside, inner world of the grave "tuma" and the associated
underworld.
In Sumerian mythology Dumu-zig, the god of death and
resurrection, also has a younger sister, the daughter of EnKi
thewater god, who was called the "goddess of the reeds", since the
Sumerians also lived in a marshy environment, much like the
FinnoUgrians, except for a huge difference in the cold vs hot
weather. The young queen of the reed stems, is well known in
Hungarian fairy tales, and is also known as the daughter of the
water god Vahti in Finnish mythology/Kandra Kabos, Magyar
Mytologia, pg88 The reeds were important and had hundreds of uses
to early man from baskets, fences, roofs, huts to types of reed
boats.
The world was believed to be divided into three major regions,
the upper world or heavens, the middle earth which is our world and
the underworld. The three regions were believed to be connected by
the "world tree" which acted much like its axle. The underworld was
the home of the dead, but also some gods also returned there
regularly, in association with the cycles of the day and the cycles
of the seasons. The term for devils or the masters of the
underworld have a lot of common terms in these languages.
The FinnoUgrians called the devil "kolja" and death "kola", and
the two were interrelated with death and sickness. Similarly in
Sumerian the underworld devils were called "gala" and the
underworld had many names, including "hal-ib", the world of the
dead, or "kur-na-gea" the land of no return. One of the giant
devils was called "kur" in Sumerian mythology. There were other
names for the ruler of the underworld such as the Finnish "manala"
which in Hungarian was called "mano" and seen as a dwarf like
devil. Etruscan also had common terms for the devil with
FinnoUgrian, since Cul-su was a demoness who guards the entrance to
the underworld, while the male Mani-a was the guardian of the
underworld with Man-tus.
FinnoUgrian kolja =devil, evil spirit
Sumerian gala =devil of the underworldEtruscan cul-su =a guard
to the entrance of the underworld.
Finn kolja=devil; kuole-ma=death.Estonian kol'l'=devilVotjak kil
=devilZrjen kul'=sicknessVogul kul'-ater =the king of the devils,
kul=devil; /8pg125Ostjak kolj =devil/3pg197Zrjen kolj=devil/Brczy
M.Sz.Sz.pg 107/3pg197Cheremis ker-emety =devil /8pg125,126Hungarian
hal-l=death [k>x>h], /19Hungarian kr=harm, damage;
kr=desease;/19
Finn manala = a devil of the underworldHungarian man =a devil of
the underworldEtruscan mania = a guardian of the underworld
The interpreters of the gods and spirits were the shamans,
because according to legends the people over time lost the ability
to communicate with heaven, and so the giant mythical eagle of
heaven was sent down and impregnated the first shamanes, dwelling
under the trunk of the world tree, whose progeny afterwards were
the male and female shamans. It is no wonder then that the Etruscan
goddess of wisdom was borrowed by the Romans as the goddess
Minerva. The shamans were much more than religious leaders, but
were doctors, teachers, philosophers and prophets. They were the
carriers of ancient knowledge, and some of their names clearly
reflect this. There were different ranks and types of
-
shamans. Not all shamanistic religions were found only among
primitive people, although they were able to maintain it easiest
due to their long isolation. Japanese Shinto and Korean ChongoJo
are both shamanistic state religions, which aren't pushed
exclusively on the people, but are respected for being the carriers
of their traditions and culture.
The chief shaman was the one with the most knowledge.
Uralic/FinnUgor *tumte=able, can, see /1,v3Hungarian tal-l=to
find, uncover, discover.Hungarian tud =know, able, can /1,v3
[mt>nt>d]Hungarian tlt-os=shaman, wise man /1,v3Hungarian
tud-os =scientistFinn tuntea=feel, sense, know/1,v3Samoyed
tumta=able, can./1,v3Votjak tuno =shaman; tod=knowledge,
acquaintance, memory/1,v3Zrjen ted=wise/1,v3Sumerian tal-tal
=knowledge, experience, wisdom/28
Etruscan trut ? l>r, =haruspex
In early Hungarian references there were 7 ranks of shamans
mentioned, with their names, that dealt with a range of specialties
from weathermen, doctoring (arvis), to singing/ceremonies (harsny),
to predictions or even black magic. Shamanism is known to adapt to
newer religions because its teachings are not based upon a lot of
dogmatic tenets, but rather its a way of doing and solving things.
Its link to the spiritual realms isn't through ancient books or
ancient prophets, but immediate and direct. If the adopting
religion isn't outright set against the shamans they coexist, since
the shamans provide a lot of valuable social work, as well as
healing. Since Christianity persecuted them, they went into hiding
and in time disappeared from the scene except for a very few, who
could still perform basic services in a Christian guise.
The Manysi Creation MythTranslated from Magyar Mitologia,
exerpts on FU mythology.
In the begining "Numi Tarom" (the main god of the "upper world",
ie. heaven) brings into being the
sun god and his wife and suspends them with a silver chain from
his home in upper heaven and the
lower world, which was a great eternal sea. (Similar to Sumerian
AN & KI, the upper and lower realms of
sky and earth, except land doesn't exist yet.)
These two hung in the great expanses of the air (or void) and
above the (cosmic) sea, being moved
from place to place my the movement of the northern and southern
winds.
The male (sun god) preyed to Numi Tarem, to let down from heaven
enough earth for the area of their
abode. Numi Tarem heard their plea and lowered down to them some
of the requested earth. The birthing
time for the woman approached and a son was brought to life. The
name of the boy was Elmpi (the son of
air). The boy grew up and visited his grandfather Numi Torem,
through the 7 layered silver mountain
passes. (Refers to the 7 levels of heaven so common in FU
mythology. In Hungarian mythology the highest
level of heaven is referred to as a golden land, where all
things are golden colored or radiant.)
Elmpi ask his grandfather Numi Tarem how to live between the
water and the sky?
The seven braided (hair) Numi Tarem teaches Elmpi to bring up
earth from the watery sea.
He provides him with the skin of a water bird, with which (he
dons) and flied down upon the sea and dives to its depths to bring
up earth.
However because the sea was rotating and won't allow the earth
to stay above it.
To stop the spinning waters Numi Tarem gives his silver buttoned
belt to Elmpi to wrap around the sea, to stop its spinning and
allows earth to be stabilized. The belt and its buttons become
the Ural Mountains, the home of
the people.
Elmpi agains goes up to visit the sky god, Numi Tarem and is
given instructions for creating mammals,
-
birds, and from snow he creates man. He then brings fishes from
the sky as food for man. Fish is thus a
gift of heaven. Then the art of hunting, the making of bows and
arrows. The tying of nets for fishing
and bird catching, he teaches to mankind. Then he teaches
mankind the institution of marriage which
starts the growth in human population. To balance population
growth, he brings down from heaven
Kulyater, the prince of the dead. (He later become more evil,
perhaps due to foreign religious influences.)
This is to balance the number of people who die with the number
that are born. One should give
space to the other.
According to the Finnish creation myth, a duck siting on the
knee of Impi (like Elmpi), builds a
nest while Impi, the daughter of the air god, is asleep. Into
the nest she lays seven eggs. All but
one of the eggs is made of gold except one is of iron. When Impi
awakens she shakes off the eggs
which are broken and from them are created the sun, moon, stars,
the vault of heaven and from the
iron egg the earth.
In the myths of the Cheremis of Kazan. Keremety in the form of a
male duck is swimming in the
great (cosmic) sea, while Juma (god of heaven) wants to built
dry land commands him to dive
under the sea and bring up earth from its bottom. Keremeti does
as commanded and dives under
to bring up earth in his beak however he doesn't give all of it
to Juma. A portion of the earth
he hides inside his mouth. When Juma breathes on the earth then
he spreads it upon the water,
it grows and Keremety starts to spit out his hidden dirt from
his mouth which then created
large mountains upon the flat earth. (Variations of this in some
Hungarian versions,
where the dirt caught in the "devils" mouth while god created
the earth also disfigured him
and what was spit out were
mountains.)
Excerpt of the legend of creation from the Hungarian sagaThe
Saga of the Legend of the Stag,
as collected by Adorjan Magyar
The seeds of the Holy Sea break out of your shell.
The eternal sea's waves are waving, and rolling.Their waves are
rocking and their foam is hissing.There is no earth yet anywhere,
but in the immeasurable heights, above in his golden house, sits
the greatheavenly father on his golden throne.
He is the old, white haired and white bearded god of eternity.
On his black robes there are thousands of sparkling stars.Besides
him sits his wife, the Great Heavenly mother. On her white robes
(palast) there are thousands of sparkling stars. She is the ancient
material of which everything is made. They have existed from
eternity in the past and will exist for all eternity to come.
In front of them stands their beautiful golden sunbeam haired
son, the sun god Magyar. The boy asks from his father: "when shall
we create the world of the humans my dear father?".
-
The Eternal Sea just waves and rolls.It's waves are rocking and
it's foam is hissing. The old gray haired heavenly father lowers
his head .He ponders the question a while and a little longer, then
he lifts his white haired head and talks to his son.
-- My dear sweet golden haired son, let us create then for the
humans their own world, so that they, who will be your sons shall
have a place to live in.
-- How shall we create such a world, my dear father?
-- This is the manner in which we can create it: In the depths
of the waving, blue Sea of Eternity are thesleeping eyes (seeds),
sleeping seeds [sem=eye/small seed] the sleeping Magya's [
Mag=seed, Magyar=man].
Descend therefore to the depths of the Great Sea and bring up
the sleeping seeds and dreaming eyes, so that we can create a world
out of them.
The son follows the direction of his father, he shakes and turns
himself into his image of a golden bird,into a golden diving duck .
[The duck was the Ugrian totem]
Then he flies down to the expanses of the Endless Sea.
He swims for a while on top of the water, and he is rocked by
the waves of the sea for a while.He then dives down into the depths
of the blue, searching for the bottom, but was unable to reach
it.Out of breath he was forced to resurface.
He swam on top again, rocked by the waves, he gathered his
strength, for a long time. After taking deep breaths he submerged
again into the blue depths, diving deeper, into the darkness,
slowly releasing his air, which like vibrating pearls rose to the
top and popped on the surface of the rolling sea.
However now his beak hit the bottom of the sea, into its sand.
He took some of it into his beak and like an arrow, he shot up to
the top of the water with it From the surface of the sea bed, he
brought up the sleeping eyes/seeds, silver white "gycske" [small
eyes?]. The sleeping eyes awoke, the sleepy eyes opened and grew up
and became living beings.
Links to both the Finnish Kalevala and the Sumerian "Barton
Tablets"containing the Sumerian creation myth can be seen here.
In the Finnish myth the diving duck lays the eggs on the lap of
the daughter of the god of the sea who is sleeping on the surface.
Awaking from her slumber the eggs break and from their shell is the
heavens, stars and earth created.
The Sumerian myth is often misunderstood but Line 15 of the
Barton Tablets says:A ENGUR-KU-GA-DUH-NUNUZ-E meaning
"Seed of the Holy Sea broke out of her egg."
Hungarian mythology also claims the origin of 7 branches of the
Hungarian people,who probably were followers of 7 different
"national" gods once long ago Remnants of this idea are noticed in
the 7 national/tribal leaders in the 9th century, many of which
appear to be also related to ancient Mesopotamian God names!?
-
This may indicate the remnant of the tradition that their rulers
are but the earthly representatives of the traditional ancient god
of the group, even though this may have been forgotten by then,
even if the traditional title was still used. By the 9th century
most Hungarian were eastern Christians.
In this sense, the Sumir mythology talks of the "7 good seeds"
This referred to the ancient 7 great gods, who were born from the
great black cosmic mountain, which later is also sacrificed in the
creation of the world. The legend of KUR.
The concept of KUR is so vast in Sumerian, just as in Hungarian
that mountain, time, black, circular, enclosure, enmity can all be
derived from the root word. Therefore the meaning can have many
ramifications for this very old myth. In the matriarchal branch of
these people the myth is changed to originate life instead from the
eternal material of Numa, the Universal Heavenly Sea goddes, rather
than from a patriarchal Cosmic Mountain.
This name is also found in the Ugrian's Numi Torem (the heavenly
creator), which is male however and is in the heights of heaven
rather than in the depths of the material sea goddess.Finn-Ugor
mythology therefore has saved both variations of the ancient
creation myths. The Altaic people seem to have memories of the
heavenly father Tengri instead of the matriarchialSea bed. This too
has its Sumerian ties since the word for God in Sumerian is Dingir
instead of Tengri. [Polynesian Tangaroa =Sea God]
Excerpt of the legend of creation from the Hungarian saga The Saga
of the Legend of the Stag, as collected by Adorjan Magyar