Pásztor Emília (szerk.): Sámánizmus és természethit régen és ma - Bajai dolgozatok 23. (Baja, 2019)
Soós Rita: Honfoglalók hidelem világa
Our ancestor's belief system dearly related to the fertility. Lanulas may have been fertility-symbols as well. They were hangings shaped as crescents (fig. 2). Soul dualism is one of the most exciting part of the infidel belief system before Christianity. According to this dualism people - also some animals (so called "souled animals") - had two souls. One being the body soul and the other the free soul, also known as shadow soul, which in some cases (scare, sleep, illness) could leave the body. Some scientists believe that soul dualism was not present among Hungarians at the time of the Conquest period. Others think that the likelihood of the presence of this believe is supported by the custom of symbolic trepanation. Some of the discovered skulls from the Conquest Period had round, oval or plum seed shaped indents. These symbolic "holes" might have been used as communication channels to the underworld. In case of a health condition that caused the loss of the free soul for the patient, this way the soul could get back into its "original place". We have to separate, however, the action of surgical trepanation, in which case real opening or openings are present on the skull. These were probably caused by a trauma (hit or cut). After the wound was cleared it was cover by some organic material to avoid infections. In case of the more affluent by a silver plate. On most such skulls the wound started to close up, which shows patients could live for month or even years after the trepanation. Likewise, another element of soul dualism were the funerary eye pieces (fig. 3). These thin, sometimes patterned plates were placed on the eye sockets of the human skull. Current studies believe them to have two different roles which contradict each other. One theory says that they were to protect the dead soul from the malicious spirits of the underworld. The other theory considers them to protect the community from the malicious look of the deceased. We also have to mention that although we suppose that some objects and tombs are related to a shaman burial, we are still not familiar with a tomb from the 10th century in the Hungarian areas that is proven to be the place of rest of a shaman. Such objects are staff endings carved from bone representing a head of an owl from Szigethalom and Hajdúdorog. These staffs - the kind of which were found in Apatin, Földeák and Szabadbattyán as well - served unknown functions. Some think they were used as a horsewhip, others believe them to be the staff of the shaman. The cause of the second reasoning is the fact that the owls appear frequently in the ethological literature as soul-birds or death-birds, and as such might indicate the shaman's free soul.
