Local names for the Mokshas include: The breakup of the Volga Finns into separate groups is believed to have begun around 1200 BC.

[13] By the end of the 4th century, most Mokshas had joined the Hunnic tribal alliance, taken part in the defeat of the Ostrogothic Empire in 377, and subsequently moved eastward and settled in Pannonia.

He converted to Islam, formed an alliance with the caliph of Baghdad Al-Muktafi, and founded a trading post at the mouth of the Oka river.

[22]: 93  Prince Yury of the city of Vladimir seized Oshel in 1220 and demanded a reduction of Bulgarian influence over the Erzyan kingdom (Purgas Rus).

[24][25] King Puresh of the Mokshans submitted to Batu Khan and was required personally to lead his army as a vassal in Mongol-Tartar military campaigns.

Roger Bacon in his Opus Majus[27] writes that the Mokshas were in the vanguard of the Mongol army and took part in the capture of Lublin and Zawichost in Poland.

Benedict Polone reports that the Mokshan army suffered serious losses during the capture of Sandomierz in February and Kraków in March of the same year.

According to reports by William Rubruck and Roger Bacon, the Mokshas had previously negotiated with the Germans and Bohemians regarding the possibility of joining their side in order to escape from their forced vassalage to Batu.

Populations of Mokshas also live in Orenburg Oblast, Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Altai Krai, as well as in diaspora communities in Estonia, Kazakhstan, the United States, and Australia.

In traditional Mokshan mythology the world was created by Ińe Narmon (Great Bird), referred to in folklore as Akša Loksti (White Swan).

According to later legends the creation of the world went through several stages: first the Idemevs (Devil) was asked by the God to bring sand from the bottom of the great sea.

The souls of heroes, clan elders and warriors slain in battle travelled after death to the emerald green isle of Usiya, where they sat at a long table together with the great King Ťušťen drinking pure mead.

Deryabin noted that the Moksha people have an Eastern European base, modified by a Pontic anthropological component in combination with a slight Uraloid admixture.

[37] Anthropologically, Moksha was formed as a result of the mixing of various types (White Sea, Pontic, East Baltic) of the Caucasian race.

Balanovsky [ru] singled out four main types of maps of genetic distances – "Eastern European", "North-Eastern", "North-Balkan", "South-Balkan", which included Slavic, Baltic, some Finno-Ugric and other peoples of Europe, however, maps of distances from Moksha do not belong to any of these types, which, according to the scientist, indicates the genetic identity of the Moksha people.

[39]:331 For the analysis of mitochondrial DNA, data on the frequencies of 16 haplogroups were used – A, C, D, H, HV, I, J, K, T, U2, U3, U4, U5a, U5b, V, W. The analysis showed a significant difference in gene pools of Finno-Ugric populations (including the peoples of Moksha and Erzya) from the following gene pools of Europe – the population of the Russian North,[40] Norwegians, Germans and other German-speaking peoples, as well as Irish, Slavs (other Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Slovenes and Bosnians), Balts, Hungarians and Swedes.

All western and eastern Finnish-speaking peoples (except Estonians) – Finns, Karelians, Mari, Komi, Moksha and Erzya fell into separate clusters, being genetically distant from the entire European mitochondrial array, including northern Russian populations and other Slavs.

[39]: 227–228 ; illustration 6.18[40]: 43 The genetic landscape of the Mokshans according to the Y-chromosome haplogroups testifies to the great originality of their gene pool, since it covers a small area of the middle reaches of the Volga, limited to its right bank.

The performed analysis of the Y-chromosome haplogroups indicates a significant genetic difference between Moksha not only from the gene pool of the Slavic and other neighboring peoples, but also from the Erzya[41] gene pool, despite their close geographic location;[39]: 183 ; illustration 5.27[42] data on the frequencies of 15 Y-chromosome haplogroups showed that the Moksha and Erzya populations are not included in a single cluster.