Pásztor Emília (szerk.): Sámánizmus és természethit régen és ma - Bajai dolgozatok 23. (Baja, 2019)
Soós Rita: Honfoglalók hidelem világa
Our ancestor's belief system People researching the connection between the belief systems and art of the period have different views that contradict each other. Some believe that the ornaments on the objects of the Hungarian Conquest period were meant just to fill the empty space on said objects without any underlying meaning. Others are of the opinion, that we can learn about the worldview and the belief system of the Hungarians of that period from the ornametns. Most experts believe that the truth is somewhere in between these opposing opinions: some figurai representations might reflect elements of the worldview of Hungarians of the Conquest period, but this is not always the case. The most remarkable group of ornaments found on archeological findings related to Hungarians are the palmette, together with the circle of tendrils as well as a growing palmette net which weaves into infinity. These motives created from plants - among other things - is typical for the most well-known group of objects form the period, the sabretache plates (fig. 4). Another pattern created from plant elements is the motive of the tree of life, which can be found on another group of emblematic objects from female graves, the plates used to fix braided hair (fig. 5). This motive was present in other cultures as well, its meaning was interpreted in several ways later on. Our ethnographers believed that for our ancestors the "tree of life" or the "tree of the world" is somehow connected to the image of the “tree that reached the sky" which stayed with us longer and can be found in the folk-tales as well. Representations similar to the "tree of life" - among others - are a central element of the belief system of Siberian peoples. This tree allowed the shaman to travel to the different layers of the word, from the world of snakes and frogs to the spiritual word. Based on the archeological findings most of the researchers interested in the Conquest period presume that, the "tree of life" or the "tree of the world" was part of the belief system of early Hungarians, but what these elements meant exactly to our ancestors cannot be determined without doubt. The portrayal of humans is almost completely missing on the objects from the Carpathian Basin around the 10th century and realistic depictions are very rare, although they can be present on belts and ornamented metal plates (fig. 6). Depictions of mythical animals on the other hand can be found in great numbers on the objects from the Conquest period. The presence of these spirits points to the fact that they were in the center or the worldview of the people who created or ordered these objects. They believed in their supernatural abilities, which are manifesting in the objects found by the archeologists in the graves. The shift to Christianity and the forming of the church caused a considerable change in the Hungarian 137
