Organization: Youngstown State University
Date: Wednesday, 15 Apr 1992 13:07:40 EDT
From: <00030929@ysub.ysu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Magyar personae

Jo' napot!

There seem to be more Magyar/Hungarian personae in the SCA than I ever thought.
Here are some notes which might be helpful for anyone seeking to develop a
Magyar or early Hungarian persona,  ca. 830-1000 A.D.

Thr sm t b mr Mgyr/Hngrn prsn n th SC thn j vr thght. Hr r sm nts whch mght be
hlpfl fr nyn skng t dvlp mgyr r rly Hngrn prsn, c. 830-1000 C.

The Spirit of Hungary -- A Panorama of Hungarian History and Culture, by
   Stephen Sisa.  Second Edition.  1990, Vista Books, Morristown, NJ.
   First Edition 1983 by the Rakoczi Foundation, Inc.

On page 10 is a picture with the following caption:  "An artist's conception
   of the Hungarians crossing the Carpathians through the Pass of Vereczke in
   895 A.D."
This picture seems to based on serious research, and I can verify many of the
details from other sources. It includes both male and female garb, seemingly
accurate representations of horse tack, ox-drawn wagons, and ........camels.
I can verify the female garb, horse bridle/reins (I am mostly unfamiliar with
the vocabulary of horse-riding), the longhorn cattle, the wagons, some of the
male garb, some of the items mounted on the horse, and some of the weapons.
I find no reason to believe that the things I cannot verify from other sources
at the present time are NOT verifiable, and would accept the details of the
picture as good representations of what they depict.
   This, then, would seem to be a reasonable illustration to use for making
garb, and for verifying such things as camels in Europe in the tenth century.

The Hungarians Cross the Carpathians, by Istvan Dienes, Corvina Press, 1972,
contains some of the verification. It includes illustrations of horse trappings
(page 28), saddle (for a woman, page 29), a plow (page 31), bows (page 37, with
text describing the making of a bow on page 38), women's garb (page 40), male's
caftan clasp (page 44), a section on religion (including shamans), and numerous
plates, including one with a picture of a real woman's cap found at Beregszasz.
Weapons, belts, clasps,money, pottery, jewelry, etc.

Two interesting notes.
   1) Women are known to have ridden horses, and their trappings were much more
ornate than their male counterparts'.
   2) Plate 26 is a picture of "Gold bracelets ending in animal heads from the
Zsennye treasure"   which look amazingly like what we have come to call "Celtic
torques".

There is also a lot of interesting information on yurts of the Magyars, though
these are spread out throughout the text.  Such information as how many pounds
of wool were necessary to make the felt that went into one yurt could be use-
ful to someone who knew more about felting, but I do not.

As to names,  I highly recommend:  The World of Names, A Study in Hungarian
                                     Onomatology
                                   Bela Kalman
                                   Akademiai Kiado
                                   1978 Budapest



I think it would not be too far wrong to say that if you can find information
on the Mongols of the 11th to 13th centuries or so, anything you see there is
apt to be very close to the Magyars of the 9th and 10th centuries.  The Magyars
had kumiss, wore caftans, rode horses, had military tactics almost identical to
the Mongols, drank horse blood, lived in yurts, etc.


Hope this can be of help.

Vajk
nwx
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca