Sumerian Mythology FAQ

Sumerian Mythology
By Samuel Noah Kramer
[1944, 1961]

Sumerian Myth

FROM BRIAN

Just like many of the other early civalizations, the Sumerians seemed to be facinated with semen. At least they realized that life comes from sex and
not from a virgin birth! The Sumerian creation myth begins with "Nammu" (the sea or semen) as "the mother who gave birth to heaven and earth".

Basically, the earth and the "heavens" were created in a pool of semen. The Sumerian myths have been pieced together due to the age of them are seem to be found in fragments. here is an interesting test from the Sumerians regarding how the moon was created. When this particular myth begin the gods have already created cities, as each city had its own god. "An" was the male god and "Ki" was the female god who gave birth to Enlil the "chief god of the pantheon". So Enhil, a goddess Ninlil (lady wind or air), along with Ninhil's mother the goddess Ninshebargunu were all residing in their respective temples in the city of Nippur (southeastern Iraq).

The goddess Ninlil was warned by her mother not to take baths in the canal called Nunbirdu because the god Enlil will want to have sex with her if he sees her bathing. The next day Ninlil does not listen to her mother and bathes anyway in the canal. Enlil sees her and asks her for a kiss, but Ninlil says to him that she is too young. So basically Enlil ends up raping Ninlil thus impregnating her with what will be the future moon, Nanna.

Enlil is looked down upon for his sexual misconduct and send him to the "underworld". For some reason Ninlil follows him down to the underworld.
Somehow Enlil realizes that his soon to be born son, Nanna, will be the moon and cannot live in the underworld. So Enhil tricks Ninlil to have sex with
3 underworld gods and give birth to their offspring, thus freeing Nanna to rise to the heavens and sit in his proper place as the moon.

It seems that the Sumerian gods became quite lazy while creating the earth and decided that they would create some humans out of the silt or clay that was left over from digging out irrigation canals. "The gods were dredging the rivers, were piling up their silt on projecting bends–and the gods lugging the clay began complaining." (Jacobsen, Harps 154)

So basically humans were created to relieve the gods of their "hard" work. Now, how the gods decide what humans would look like gets even stranger.

"The gods then decide to have a feast to celebrate their new creation, and Enki and Ninmah begin to drink beer and start "to feel good inside." Ninmah
boasts that she, as the goddess of birth and gestation, is the one who determines whether "the build of men" (Harps 158) turns out well or misshapen."
"Enki responds that he, the clever god, can find places in society for even the most handicapped people. Ninmah molds from the clay a man with
shaking hands, but Enki places him as an attendant of the king. Ninmah next makes a blind man, but Enki makes him a singer of tales. Ninmah makes a
person named "Hobbled-by-twisting-ankles," but Enki finds work for him with the metal workers (c.f. Hephaistos). Ninmah continues to make handicapped people: "a person unable to control his urine, a barren woman, a being with neither male nor female organs, and so forth, but in each case Enki was able to find a place in society for the [creature] and to ensure it a living"
(Jacobsen, Treasures 114).

The woman who could not give birth, for example, was found a place overseeing the weavers in "the queen's household" (Harps
161), while the sexless being was to "stand before the king" (Kramer, History Begins 109-110).
Knowing that she cannot outsmart the clever Enki, Ninmah throws down the clay in defeat. Now Enki decides to make his own misshapen being, and he challenges Ninmah to "determine / the mode of being / of that newborn one!"
(Harps 162).

Enki, in a manner which is not all that clear causes a creature to be born whose name is "the-day-was-far off." In other words, the creature is born prematurely, before its fated birthdate. This creature is also extremely deformed: "its hands, having the shakes, /could not put food / to its mouth, / the spine was crushed, / the anus closed up, / the hips were brittle, / the feet (with their) skin breaking / unable to walk the fields " (Harps 162).

Ninmah tries to feed the creature some bread, but
it is so weak and feeble that it cannot reach out for the loaves she offers it. It cannot sit or stand or even bend its knees. Ninmah is horrified at what Enki has made and curses him for it. The remainder of the tablet is broken, but apparently Ninmah realizes that if such unformed and deformed beings are born with any sort of regularity, people will stop worshipping her. Enki tries to appease her wrath by admitting that the deformed being "is lacking, in truth, / your work, Ninmah; [he] was born to me / incomplete" (Harps 165).

The poem ends with a song of praise for Enki's male generative powers and for his cleverness, but the story itself seems to indicate that Enki cannot make a functional being without the help of the birth goddess Ninmah." Depending on how you translate the different (and many) poems regarding Sumerian Creationism, I think the basic message regarding the above story is this; The Sumerians believed that a "whole" human being, the male and the
female were both equal in the process. Earlier cultures seemed to have much more respect of the feminine aspects of the world in which they were trying to make sense of. Of course they still appear 'barbaric' regarding having some of their gods raped etc. But there were still important and powerful female deities to represent the "women" of there times."