An Association for Maintaining Nomadic Equestrian
Traditions of Hungary
The group of
‘Pusztai Róka’ was formed to live and to keep up the Hungarian historical horse
traditions. We focus on the nomadic traditions of the ancient Hungarians. It
leads to the legendary era of the early Middle Ages, when nomadic riders
entered the stage of European history.
"De Saggitis Hungarorum
libera nos Domine!" (Lord, save us from the arrows of Hungarians!) had
been chanting while the cradle of Europe was rocked. Due to their nomadic
equestrian lifestyle Hungarians had more efficient military strategy and
tactic.
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The title of the
show of ‘Pusztai Róka’ is ‘Fight and game in the nomadic traditions’. It undertakes
to give a taste of this special way of riding, using traditional weapons, wear
and spirit. Wooden saddles covering
furs, and richly adorned reins used on the horses. There are 5-6 different kinds
of weapon on the riders. The famous horseback archery and fighting with lance
and spear, sabre and battle-axes, as well as the use of the long special
Hungarian ringed whip can be seen on the first part of the show. Beside fighting
we also perform some stunt riding (dzsigit), the very powerful game of the
nomads called kökpar or buskashi and horseback wrestling. The show takes from
15 up to 40-60 minutes depending on the number of actors and structure of the
programme. The number of the riders can be up to 10 and they need some henchmen
to provide assistance during the show. We have professional narration and
revelational music to build up the proper mood.
The show is
performed on various festivals, historical or sport events, mainly in Hungarian
fields (Hungary, Transylvania, once in northern Serbia), but we were also
invited to Germany and Kazakhstan too.
The group was duly
incorporated in 2004 as an NGO. The headquarters are situated on a traditional
farm in a puszta attached to the city of Karcag, in the middle of the Great
Hungarian Plain. Karcag is the main settlement of the region, where the lastly
arrived nomadic tribe, the Cumans settled down. The name ‘Karcag’ came from their
language. (There is an animal, named ‘steppe fox’ in English, ‘pusztai róka’ in
Hungarian, ‘vulpes corsac’ in Latin – this ‘corsac’ came from ‘karcag’. This
form has stayed in use in Kazakhstan.) So the name of the group is after the Cuman
meaning of our central town. Members hold different jobs and live in different
places, but most of us have their own livestock, few or more sheep and cattle
and each rides their own horses. Beside performing the show we do love to take longer trips on horseback, riding hundreds
of kilometres in traditional clothing and equipment without motoric assistance.
So this is the way we love and live the ancient culture of Hungarians.
Contact e-mail: bpnk@t-online.hu
This website reports about the events
(details in Hungarian and in Pictures:)
A taste of the tour of 2015 - for example: