Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

In May of 2011 I put up this post regarding the so called demons Lamastu (or Lamashtu) and Pazuzu. Just as an aside, and in case you - like me - are a fan of the SyFy series "Face Off" the latter's name is pronounced PA-zoo-zoo; not pa-ZA-zoo which I imagine would make him some kind of jazz hands sporting, tap dancing demon.

Anyway, in that post I mentioned the Sumerian she-demon Ardat-Lili. This inscrutable character from folklore, who later morphed into not only the baby killer Lamastu but also informed the now famous Jewish monster Lilith, is one hard nut to crack. At least speaking in terms of research.

Unlike Lamastu, who as noted was the daughter of a god and therefore, at the very least, more akin to a demi-goddess than a demon, Ardat-Lili seems to have originated as a troubled spirit. According to the one sentence notation afforded her in Patricia Monaghan's book Goddesses and Heroines, Ardat-Lili was a storm demon not in Sumerian but in related Semitic tradition. Monaghan goes on to say:

... this ... demon caused nocturnal emissions, mounting sleeping men and capturing their ejaculations to form her demon children.

This form of Ardat-Lili is in contrast to the picture of her as "frustrated bride." In such role she is neither wife nor mother and, denied these most feminine of attributes, she seeks revenge for her bareness either on  women who are more fortunate that she or on men who represent those who have spurned her.

In their book Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia, Jeremy Black and Anthony Green discuss this more ancient form of Ardat-Lili. In their entry, she is a member of a triumvirate of demons who prey on both women and men. Paraphrasing the doctors would be a bit silly, so here is the entry under "lilitu" in it's entirety (pg 118):

The male lili and the two females lilitu and ardat-lili are a sort of family group of demons. They are not gods. The lili haunts desert and open country and is especially dangerous to pregnant women and infants. The lilitu seems to be a female equivalent, while the ardat-lili (whose name means 'maiden lili') seems to have the character of a frustrated bride, incapable of normal sexual activity. As such, she compensates by aggressive behavior especially towards young men. The ardat-lili, who is often mentioned in magical texts, seems to have some affinities with the Jewish Lilith (e.g. Isaiah 34:14). 'She is not a wife, a mother; she has not known happiness, has not undressed in front of her husband, has no milk in her breasts.' She was believed to cause impotence in men and sterility in women.

A plaque thought possibly to depict her shows a scorpion-tailed  she-wolf about to devour a young girl.

Thus the evolution of one unsettled spirit into a frightening demon embodying frustration, malevolence and disappointment. How full of interesting characters the underworld, if it exists anywhere beyond our own minds, must be.

Header: Assyrian plaque of protection against Lamastu via Wikipedia (note that Lamastu, at the center bottom of the plaque, appears as a lion or wolf-headed woman; the creature holding the plaque, whose head appears at the top, is Pazuzu)

Jeudi: Great Spirits

When modern Westerners think of demons we tend to think in terms of Hollywood.  Specifically: that thing in “The Exorcist”

that made the girl’s head spin around.  It doesn’t help our understanding of World religions that historians of various disciplines all too frequently tag ancient spirits with the word demon.  It is usually done for classification purposes – a demon is distinguishable, for instance, from a deity or an ancestor – but it tends to confuse people.  Particularly fundamentalists.

Two classic examples of the ancient spirit to modern demon formula are the rivals Lamastu and Pazuzu.  These two, the former female and the latter male, came to Assyrian mythology through Babylonian folklore.  They were probably born in the Sumerian culture as possible variations – Ardat Lili and Huwawa specifically – are often mentioned in early writing. 

Lamastu was thought of as a demigoddess in Assyria.  She was the daughter of the sky god An and therefore at the very least a cousin to more familiar goddesses such as Inanna/Ishtar and Erishkigal.  She was not one of the simple galu who chased down sinners for the underworld queen but in fact seems to have been a force unto herself, doing evil because she liked to.  The primary targets of her cruelty were women and children, particularly unborn and newborn babies.  Lamastu was blamed for miscarriages and crib deaths almost universally in Assyrian culture.  It was imagined that if she could manage to enter a house and touch the stomach of a pregnant woman seven times the child would be stillborn.  If she could touch the woman at all, the child would not see a second year of life.  In Babylonian folklore Lamastu is thought of as a “frustrated bride” in the mold of the Sumerian Ardat Lili.  Her lack of a husband and bareness make her hate wives and mothers whom she then attacks without remorse.  Similar malice would later be attributed to Lilith, the first wife of Adam in Jewish folklore.

The best way to keep Lamastu away from mothers and babies was to fight fire with fire.  Enter another demigod, Pazuzu.  Known now as a wind or desert demon Pazuzu was more caretaker than bringer of misery.  Though his statues were frightening to look at, he was considered a guardian.  He kept away the hot winds from the west, which ancient Mesopotamians believed brought disease with them.  People routinely kept small votive statues of the winged Pazuzu in their dwellings as charms against misfortune.  Most importantly, amulets in the shape of the demigod’s head were worn by pregnant women to keep the jealous gaze of Lamastu from targeting them and their unborn child.  This tradition’s origin may be seen in the Sumerian habit of placing the frightening visage of the forest giant Huwawa, who was killed by the hero Gilgamesh in the famous poems, on buildings to keep them safe.

Curiously, both Lamastu and Pazuzu live on in modern religious thought, if one can call it that.  Lamastu has morphed into the “lust demon” Alkala, feared by fundamentalist Christians for her ability to possess you and addict you to drugs, alcohol and Internet porn.  Pazuzu, taking a more glamorous road to fame, became that thing that made the girl’s head spin around in “The Exorcist”. 

Header: Assyrian statuette of Pazuzu 7^th century BCE