HUN RELIGION. Over the centuries, the name Hun has been widely and indiscriminately applied to a multiplicity of Inner Asian nomad peoples. In this article only the "genuine" Huns will be considered, those who in the second half of the fourth century CE took possession of the North Pontic steppes (the steppes to the north of the Black Sea) and for about eighty years—particularly under the rule of Attila (433?–453)—played a major role in the history of Europe. I shall also take into account those Huns who, following the disintegration of Attila's empire, established and maintained in the northern Caucasus a kingdom that lasted to the end of the seventh century.

By the standards of Inner Asian historiography, the history of the Huns is reasonably well documented, mainly by written sources, among which the (alas!) fragmentary text of Priscus's eyewitness account of daily life in...