Myth, ritual, and order in "Enki and the world order".

• Author: Averbeck, Richard E.

"Enki and the World Order" (henceforth EWO) is a long and relatively well-preserved Sumerian mythological composition (ca. 472 lines). (1) It divides naturally into four major sections. First, there is an opening third-person praise to Enki (lines 1-60). Second, Enki praises himself twice in the first person (lines 61-139): (a) in his first self-praise Enki recounts how Enlil commissioned him and gave him the gift of the me's and nam-tar, the various cultural components that made up the core of Sumerian life and culture, and the power to determine destinies, respectively (lines 61-85), and (b) in the second self-praise Enki proposes to take a journey through Sumer on his barge, in order to fulfill his commission to establish proper order and prosperity in Sumer (lines 86-139). Third, the long central section of the composition recounts Enki's journey through the land, decreeing the destiny of the Sumerian world (lines 140-386). In the first part of this section Enki begins with Sumer as a whole, and especially Ur, and moves from there to the surrounding regions of Magan, Meluhha, and Dilmun (lines 140-249). In the second part of the journey he comes back to the Sumerian homeland itself, where in a twelve-cycle series he assigns specific deities to take charge of the functions of various regions and elements of the Sumerian world order (lines 250-386). Fourth, and finally, Inanna complains to Enki that he had not assigned her any special functional powers in his decreeing of destinies, and Enki responds to her complaint (lines 387-471).

In a previous article I treated in some detail the twelvefold cycle of the second part of Enki's journey (lines 250-386), in which Enki establishes the flow and fecundity of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and the canals (cycles 1-4), the tools, principles, and crops of the farmer (cycles 5-6), the tools and practices of brick making and construction (cycles 7-8), the plains and pastures with their herds and flocks (cycles 9-10), and finally the various city states and their industries (cycles 11-12). (2) I proposed there that, although EWO is a complex and sophisticated myth, reflecting a high level of religious, intellectual, and literary creativity, the primary subject matter and focus of the myth is nevertheless the proper functioning of regular daily, weekly, seasonal, and annual cycles of life at all levels of society in ancient Sumer. EWO, therefore, provides a useful starting point for approaching the subject of common daily life in ancient Sumer.

The present essay is concerned with the overall framework and interpretation of the composition as a whole in the sections leading up to and surrounding the twelve cycles. This includes the world outside of Sumer (i.e., part one of Enki's journey), Enki's self-praises at the beginning of the composition, and Inanna's complaint at the end. The composition begins with the author's opening praise of Enki, the god of Eridu, the god of underground waters, fertility, and productivity. His brother Enlil, the chief god of Sumer, had commissioned him to make rulers and common people alike happy, prosperous, and secure in Sumer (lines 1-60). (3)

THE "REGULAR WORLD" IN ENKI AND THE WORLD ORDER

Of course, one should always be cautious about reading a literary composition for an understanding of the common daily life of ancient peoples. In this particular myth, however, analogies to the regular real world as the ancient Sumerians would have experienced and understood it are to be found on the immediate surface of the text (see below). To be sure, EWO mythologizes and idealizes their regular world, but that's the main point--it is their regular real world that is being mythologized and idealized, not some alternate "other world," such as the netherworld, or regions outside of Sumer that the Sumerians thought of as comparatively barbaric and chaotic.

MYTH AND THE "REGULAR WORLD" ORDER

There are various kinds of myths. EWO is the type that deals with the real and regular world of the authors, not only historical and geographical reality, but also cultural, social, economic, vocational, moral, and other related aspects of human experience or perceptions of it. This kind of myth, in particular, is much more than fiction (i.e., non-factual storytelling), even if it contains fictional elements. (4) It consists of imaginative stories that are, in fact, based on reality and/or history, and, therefore, reflects foundational understandings of the world that are important to the culture of the composer and those who read his compositions or hear them recited. There is a natural correspondence between fiction, myth, and history in the sense that all three manifest themselves primarily in narrative story form, even though they are different kinds of stories.

According to Johan Huizinga's well-worn definition, "History is the intellectual form in which a civilization renders account to itself of its past." (5) This is primarily a sociological definition of history, and it is one of the best places to start when dealing with history writing, whether ancient or modern. If there is no anchor to real events in the past, then what we have in hand is not history writing. The difference between written history and myth as it is understood and used here is that, although history writing is certainly perspectival, selective, and speculative, it is also always anchored to what was believed to have actually happened in the past. Mythology, like history writing, is also speculative, but the focus shifts from what happened in the past, to what continues to happen all the time. Myth is not just about how people understand and articulate their understanding of what happened, but how they understand and articulate what happens in their lives every day, week, month, or (season of the) year.

In her recent book Leviticus as Literature, Mary Douglas has reviewed the rather large body of scholarly literature about mythology that has arisen in the fields of cultural anthropology, philosophy, and literary studies over the last sixty years. (6) According to this literature, a well-founded approach to myth will distinguish between "analogical" and "rational-instrumental" ways of thinking and writing. On the one hand, for example, in their administrative and economic texts, the ancient Sumerians show that they were capable of careful rational-instrumental ("scientific" empirical) thinking--cause and effect on the level of nature and society. Such a capability was necessary if they were to accomplish cultural feats like irrigation agriculture.

The kind of myth we have in EWO consists largely of "analogical thinking" about the regular realities the ancient Sumerians faced. It reflects upon the human world by describing or imagining creative analogies between the circumstances and experiences of human beings in the world, beliefs about the world of the gods, and relationships between gods and people. People build and maintain canals, but the gods do too, at least according to Sumerian mythology. People fish in the rivers, but so do the gods. People depend on the annual flood, and so do the gods, some of whom also have something to do with making it happen every year. Myth, therefore, contemplates and describes the idealized perception and understanding that the writer has of her or his world or work.

What is important for us here is that one side of the analogy arose from the author's knowledge and experience of the historical, natural, geographical, cultural, economic, vocational, or social reality in which he or she lived. This is not writing out of pure imagination, even though one's religious, cultural, and/or literary imagination could be fully exercised in myth. The mythical analogical character of the story does not eliminate the fact that the realities upon which the story is based did exist and were important to the ancient people. Yes, one can say there is fiction here, but not just fiction. If we are going to understand myth we must get beyond the "truth" versus "fiction" dichotomy.

MYTH AND THE "OTHER WORLD" ORDER

It is important to distinguish EWO from other kinds of Sumerian mythological compositions in which analogical connections to regular life in the world are not so self-evident or close to the surface of the text. EWO is mythology about the "regular world" order, but in the corpus of Sumerian literature there are also other myths or mythological motifs that are about the "other world." (7) These myths or motifs relate particularly to the chaotic regions of the world, on or beyond the edges of human civilization, including the netherworld and the world of barbarians, strange unnatural creatures, and demonic beings. According to such myths, both gods and humans have relationships with the "other world," not just with their own familiar "world order." But the Sumerians could also think and write about the gods and the human world without making reference to the "other world." This is precisely what EWO does.

For example, in the "other world" the Sumerian edin "steppe" is sometimes referred to as a land that is in opposition to the "homeland" (kalam). It is the place of wild animals, barbarian peoples, and the dead. (8) In EWO the steppe (edin) is nothing of the sort. There are the "upland plains" (an-edin), where there is plenty of grass and herbage for the wild animals to forage on and prowl in, and where they can multiply abundantly. Enki placed the god "Sakkan, king of the foothills (hur-sag)" in charge of such regions (lines 349-57). As in the "other world" texts, wild animals are present, but demons and the netherworld are not part of the picture in EWO. Historically, for example, Sumerian kings actually hunted for game in these regions. This was part of the "regular world" order, with the "other world" left out. The "(inland) plains" (edin) are also regions of grass and herbs, but these areas are inhabited by domesticated sheep and cattle...