FINNO-UGRIC RELIGION

pre-Christian and pre-Islamic religious beliefs and practices of the Finno-Ugric peoples, who inhabit regions of northern Scandinavia, Siberia, the Baltic area, and central Europe. In modern times the religion of many of these peoples has been an admixture of agrarian and nomadic primitive beliefs and of Christianity and Islam. the pre-Christian religious beliefs and practices of the Finno-Ugric peoples, who inhabit regions of northern Scandinavia, Siberia, the Baltic area, and central Europe. The geographic dispersion of the Finno-Ugric peoples is understood mainly through linguistic criteria, since historical and archaeological evidence is scanty. From their ancient home between the Ural Mountains and the Volga River, they began to spread north about 40005000 BC and south, east, and west perhaps a millennium later. Prominent among the many surviving groups are the Sami (Lapps) of the Arctic region, the Finns and the Estonians of the Baltic area, the Hungarians (or Magyars) of central Europe, and the Permic and Volga Finns of central and southern Russia. Variations in habitat and climate over such a large region have fostered great diversity in economy and social organization, as well as in traditional religion, among the Finno-Ugric peoples. In addition, numerous outside cultures have left their mark. Such heterogeneity renders problematic the concept of a single formula embracing Finno-Ugric religions. The search for a common historical tradition once engaged many scholars, but attention has turned to the nonhistorical study of similarities and differences in Finno-Ugric religious material, revealing a spectrum running from Arctic hunting-and-fishing cultures to southern agrarians. Additional reading A comprehensive presentation can be found in Louis Herbert Gray, George Foot More, and J.A. MacCulloch (eds.), The Mythology of All Races, vol. 4, Finno-Ugric, Siberian, by Uno Holmberg (1927, reprinted 1964). More recent surveys with extensive bibliographies include Ivar Paulson, Die Religionen der finnischen Vlker, in Ivar Paulson, ke Hultkrantz, and Karl Jettmar (eds.), Die Religionen Nordeurasiens und der amerikanischen Arktis (1962), pp. 145303; and Lauri Honko, Religionen der finnisch-ugrischen Vlker, in Jes Peter Asmussen, Jrgen Laesse, and Carsten Colpe (eds.), Handbuch der Religionsgeschichte, vol. 1, trans. from Danish (1971), pp. 173224. Lauri O. Honko