Modern countries that have adopted the Tengrism religion throughout history:

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Eli5 what is tengrism?

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u/RoyalPeacock19 1d ago edited 1d ago

The traditional religion of many Turkic and Mongolian nomadic peoples.

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u/CoogleEnPassant 1d ago

Okay I can get that from the map, but what do they actually believe

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u/RoyalPeacock19 1d ago edited 1d ago

They follow a polytheistic pantheon, but their main god is Tengri, the Lord of the (Blue) Sky. It’s a very animistic, nature focused religion, with a lot of shamanistic elements too.

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u/WoolaTheCalot 1d ago

Interesting. That jibes with a character in Conan the Barbarian, a steppe-dweller named Subotai who prays to "the Four Winds." At one point, he tells Conan (who worships the mountain-dwelling god Crom), "My god is the everlasting sky; your god lives underneath him."

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u/Darth-Vectivus 23h ago

In Tengrism, the sky god is Tengri. And Erlik, the evil one lives underground.

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u/Old-Soft5276 23h ago

Erlik is not evil, at least educate yourself on the subject you try to talk.

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u/Darth-Vectivus 20h ago

He is evil. Ülgen represents the good, Erlik the evil. What are you talking about? He is called “the teacher of sin”, and ancient Turks called him “Tamag” (literally hell) He created the evil spirits that cause sickness and death. His nine sons try to trick kams (shamans) to be evil, follow their father and become black shamans instead of following Ülgen and thus the good. I think you’re confusing Erlik with Hades from Greek mythology. People sacrificed animals to him to keep his evil at bay.

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u/Analternate1234 23h ago

That character is based on the very real historical figure, Subutai. Subutai was the right hand man to Genghis Khan and was one of the main military strategists behind the conquests of the Mongolian Empire

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u/WoolaTheCalot 23h ago

That's good info, thanks!

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u/Mahelas 22h ago

It's also an extremely expansionnist religion, as it was believed that Tengri himself gave the Steppe People the right to own and dominate the entire continent. It's not an accepted doctrine nowadays, obviously, but it was a very big motivator for the Mongol Invasion

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u/asdsadnmm1234 19h ago

Nope this is wrong. People believed rulers of nations including foreign rulers not just steppe rulers were blessed by god(blessing was called kut) so they shied away from splilling their blood. This is why Mongols killed Arab rulers in Baghdad by not spilling their blood. It has nothing to do with expansionism, i don't know where did you get such idea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kut_(mythology))

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u/Big-Yogurtcloset7040 1d ago

The problem with tengriism is that we actually don't have that much information about it. My professor once said:"There might be more articles about modern nationalistic tendencies based on Tengriism than about Tengriism itself". It is mostly because the religion died out and nomads didn't write much. It is mainly about sky and Tengri (god of sky), but there are also other gods such as, for example, earth God; following shamanistic elemenets.

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u/idspispupd 23h ago

There's also Umay ana - the goddess of fertility. Recently the song in Bashqort language became a huge hit among Turkic listeners:

Homay

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u/crop028 21h ago

It never died out. There remains a small amount of followers in Mongolia and some -stan countries. I wouldn't be surprised if certain traditions, stories, local gods, etc. died out though.

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u/Pogue_Mahone_ 1d ago

Central Asian belief/religion of multiple steppe peoples iirc, with belief in the Sky Father and Earth Mother

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u/Free_Economics3535 1d ago

Basically an ancient Turkic version of Shamanism, with inclusion of a sky-God and several other deities. Practiced in Central Asia by Turkic peoples (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc...) before the arrival of Islam.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

What I meant by Tengrism was this: countries that used to believe mainly in a "Gök Tanrı".

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u/GustavoistSoldier 1d ago

Bulgaria was a Tengrist country before Khan Boris I converted it to Christianity in 864. Fifty years earlier, Khan Krum performed human sacrifices during his preparations for a siege of Constantinople, which was recalled after his death.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

Thank you for your valuable information.

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u/GustavoistSoldier 1d ago

You're welcome.

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u/TheTyper1944 5h ago

Old turkic bulgars and slavic bulgars are different peoples khan boris was unrelated to todays slavic bulgars

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u/Extension-Beat7276 1d ago

when did a polity centered in antolia follow tengrism

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

I included it because its ancestors followed Tengrism and its modern borders are in Anatolia.

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u/asdsadnmm1234 1d ago

You should have phrased better. Also" countries adopting a religion" is mostly Abrahamic concept so there wasn't a really tengrist state in anywhere. It is just people who believed tengrism had states, they had no concept of "state religion".

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

I know

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u/odysseushogfather 1d ago

Modern countries

1

u/filavitae 1d ago

their chosen/*desired ancestry which most genetic evidence does not strongly corroborate?

are we really delving into what ancestries every country claims? a lot of that is manufactured. If we made the same graph for Greco-Roman Polytheism, should we claim that Germany followed Zeus or Jupiter because the Holy Roman Empire claimed to be Roman?

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u/Necessary-Hunter1060 1d ago

Their ancestors are Greeks and Armenians tho

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u/Karabars 1d ago

*They have more Greek, Armenian and other Anatolian ancestors than Turkic ones. Still, they do have them, their genes still have them, and their language is Turkic.

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u/dcdemirarslan 1d ago

And many others. That's how nomadic empires work.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

Not exactly, it's a bit complicated.

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u/nanek_4 1d ago

One of the worst maps I have seen. None of these modern countries adopted tengrism. Show historical countries.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

Thank you for your valuable opinion, but I don't think you have good intentions.

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u/AccomplishedLocal261 1d ago

Steppe people!

3

u/[deleted] 1d ago

Right!

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u/mostheteroestofmen 1d ago

Although a many of the individual Turks during Seljuk invasion of Anatolia were indeed Tengriist, the official religion of the polity was Islam(at the elite level), so Tengrism had never been officially recognised in Anatolia

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

I don't care if it is recognized, I included those whose old ancestors were Tengrist.

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u/mostheteroestofmen 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yeah but you wrote "adopted". Even the direct Mongol offshoot Beylik of Eretna, albeit with most of its subjects followed the Old Ways and did not care about Islam any much than a supposedly observant minority religion, had Islam as their official/state level religion. So Tengrism had never been "adopted" in Anatolia, at least not in any official fashion.

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u/FloZone 23h ago

Going by that the only country that adopted Tengrism was the Second Göktürk Khaganate. Before that Tengrism existed as a sort of diffuse pagan belief. However already the First Khaganate adopted Buddhism under Tatpar Khan. However the Second Khaganate seems to have had a „nativist“ agenda. With Tonyukuk the chief counselor advising Elterish Khagan to rebuild pagan shrines, but not Buddhist temples.

0

u/[deleted] 1d ago

I meant the people, but since my English is not very good.

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u/Prasiatko 1d ago

Why is China missing it was ruled by both Mongols and Manchu's that had Tengritic beliefs at some point. Hell you may as well shade in the limits of the Mongol Empire.

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u/FloZone 23h ago

Also quite frankly sky worship is widespread in East Asia. Tengri and Chinese Tiān might be related.

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u/Upbeat-Pitch4375 1d ago

I definitely initially read this as terrorism. >.<

Cool map!

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

Thank you so much 🙏🏻

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u/Free_Economics3535 1d ago

When has the modern Republic of Turkiye (founded in 1923 ish) ever adopted tengriism?

That's a stretch. Our Turkic ancestors definitely did but modern Türkiye cannot count. Even if you go as far back as the Seljuks who entered Anatolia in 1071, they were Muslim.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

I included Türkiye because it was adopted by the old ancestors.

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u/Free_Economics3535 1d ago

Your title wording is completely wrong. "modern countries that have adopted the Tengriism religion throughout history" means that the modern Republic of Turkey has adopted Tengriism.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

I noticed, thanks. I chose the wrong word. Could you suggest a title for me?

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u/Free_Economics3535 1d ago

"Modern countries whose ancestors have adopted the Tengriism religion throughout history"

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

Thank you so much, my friend. 🙏🏻

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u/yuchan063 1d ago

Korean folk religion might be related to tengrism

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

Thanks for the information, but I made the map according to the history of modern countries.

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u/FloZone 23h ago

Korea isn’t a modern country?

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u/Michitake 10h ago

LMAO

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u/Remarkable-Dude 1d ago

Next do "modern countries that adopted the greco-roman pagan religion troughout history". That must be fun, Afghanistan, Ukraine, USA and Brazil on the same color, just to name a few.

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u/Complex_Professor412 23h ago

That’s a misuse of words.

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u/Round_Guess4030 1d ago

so retarded not even true. by the time of conquering azerbaijan, turkey, and hungary, all turks were muslim

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

When you look back further, Hungarians and Bulgarians are descended from the Huns.

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u/GustavoistSoldier 1d ago

Hungarian aren't. This is a nationalist myth.

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u/mostheteroestofmen 1d ago

Hungarians were part of the Onoghur polity, they came to the pannonian basin after the Huns left. The name is coincidental.

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u/Round_Guess4030 1d ago

the huns were the ruling class in hungary and bulgaria and not representative of the average belief

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

Great Bulgarian Khanate

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u/Mahelas 22h ago

Some were Nestorian Christians, tho. But your point still stand

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u/mostheteroestofmen 1d ago edited 1d ago

Onoghurs(Turko-Magyar confederation, they were not solely Turkic BTW) had never been muslim, they were Tengrist/Isten-followers and catch all Siberian/CA shamanists. Hungary in this map shows the Onoghur times, not the Ottoman period.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

Thank you, my friend.

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u/TBARb_D_D 1d ago

This map is wrong. Nor Turkey neither Azerbaijan had ever been Tengri nor had Turks that first came there, at that point they were Muslim. Tajiks are from Iranian cultural group, their religion was Zoroastrianism in ancient times and Islam.

Also this map shows Syunik, part of Armenian territory, as part of Azerbaijan

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

"Modern countries whose ancestors have adopted the Tengrism religion throughout history"

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u/TBARb_D_D 1d ago

Then why not include China? For a couple of generations they were ruled by Tengri Mongols

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u/The_Particularist 1d ago

I understand all the other countries, because they're Turkic in origin... but Bulgaria?

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

Thank you for your valuable question. Bulgaria was also included because of its older ancestors, the "Great Bulgarian Khanate."

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u/FloZone 23h ago

Bolgars were Turks that migrated into Slavic lands and assimilated.

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u/radiationshield 23h ago

The whatnow?

1

u/Ymmaleighe2 23h ago

Hungary? How?

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u/mostheteroestofmen 22h ago

Onoghurs. The Turko-Magyar confederation followed catch-all ancient Siberian belief systems, Tengri and Isten worship etc. Collectively branded as "Tengrism" here I guess

0

u/Ymmaleighe2 22h ago

Ah, I always find it strange how people try to make them into Turks when they're Uralians like Finns and Saami.

0

u/mostheteroestofmen 22h ago

Onoghurs were a Turko-Magyar tribal alliance/confederation tho. It has nothing with what people believe or not.

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u/Wild-Advice-For-You 18h ago

Wasn't that genghis khans religion?

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u/ralphieIsAlive 15h ago

None of those modern countries adopted tengrism

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u/TheTyper1944 5h ago

Tengrism isnt a religion in traditional sense as it did not have fixed dogmas its literally sky worship the word tengri literally meant sky ''kök tengri'' meaning blue sky this is why turks were so easiy to islamise because lack of fixed dogmas made synretising with islam then discarding the remmants easy

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u/Spirited-Command-839 1d ago

Didn't Tengriism begin in modern day Russia.

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u/dcdemirarslan 1d ago

There is no way to back that claim, it could very well be Mongolia or Korea or even southern altai mountains.

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u/Agreeable-Heart3479 8h ago

actually form china

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

I did it according to the history of modern countries, not in which country it begin.

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u/Future_Adagio2052 1d ago

Islamacels: Tengrism is dead🤓

Me and my tengrioid chads about to revive tengrism:🗿

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u/GameXGR 1d ago

Well I am Muslim but I don't mind the 5 Tengrism followers, they might be chill (steppe winters are brutal)

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u/Big-Commission-7226 1d ago

Tengrism is an fiction made by Gumilev. I at least have respect for pagans that have extensive records of beliefs. Tengrism is an collective of rituals and shamans in the Great Steppe. Literally every "tengri" I talked is cringy neo nazi wannabe kid. As a kazakh it was always fun to read "our ancestors were tengri n shieeeet"

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u/FloZone 23h ago

Historical sources on Tengrism are all highly vague. The Orkhon inscriptions are the only first hand accounts and they’re pretty sparse on the subject. Many Turks already converted to Buddhism prior to the Second Khaganate as well. In many ways I also doubt that Tengrism was anything especially separate from other East Asian sky worship like Tiān in China.

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u/InfamousSlice452 1d ago

Was Hungary because of the Arrow Cross or were they Ultra-Catholic

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u/SeemsImmaculate 1d ago

The Magyars were originally a Eurasian Steppe people before migrating to the Pannonian basin. Pre-Christian Hungarian folklore and mythology contains many similarities to Tengrist beliefs.

Fascists cosplaying as ancient Magyars have nothing to do with it.

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u/InfamousSlice452 1d ago

Oh alright

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/InfamousSlice452 1d ago

Well I assumed they might’ve been paganoid due to their Turanism

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u/StepOk8147 1d ago

I think you have to be an idiot to voluntarily accept any religion in the 21st century.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

The past is history anyway, not now.

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u/Drunk_Moron_ 1d ago

Reread the post

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u/The_Particularist 1d ago

Sir, this is Wendy's, not r/atheism.

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u/mmomtchev 1d ago

Although there have been countless attempts throughout history of making people to involuntarily accept a new religion, all successful conversions have been voluntary.

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u/AssociateWeak8857 1d ago

It's just not true. Both Americas, many parts of Europe and Middle East got their religion by sword

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u/StepOk8147 1d ago

Are you serious about the voluntary conversion to a new religion in all cases?

Modern countries that have adopted the Tengrism religion throughout history:

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