creation-2.htm

The Creation (2)

comments by Patrick C. Ryan (1/11/98)

Out of nothing, a being created itself, which possessed within itself the male and female principles.

COMMENT

There is general agreement around the world with the activity described by this first phase of creation with the major exception of the the Hebrew tradition.

This union of male and female attributes was described by two main metaphors: actual hermaphroditism and marriage.

SUMERIAN

The earliest tradition is hermaphroditic:

"ubar-An-na-ke₄ si ha-mu-da-sá"

"May it be set aright with the breasts of An."

(Lugalzaggesi, vase inscription, iii. 27-28, in Jacobsen 1976, Note 89, p. 249)

NOTE: Even at this early date, we have an apparent substitution of the sky-god, An, for a function that originally belonged to the Sumerian deity of the celestial ocean, who, though not named in any hitherto recovered myth, perhaps may be glimpsed in the Babylonian list of antediluvian kings, presumably from a Sumerian source, which begins with Alulim (Graves/Patai 1983, p. 132).

"... primeval Apsû ("father of increase"), their begetter,

and the matrix, Ti'âmat ("maid of life")

--- she who gave birth to them all ---

were mingling their waters (essences) in one."

(Enûma elish [Akkadian], in Jacobsen 1976, p. 168)

EGYPTIAN

The earliest tradition is also hermaphroditic, for which the principal evidence is the etymology of the name of the Egyptian creator-deity, Atum:

the deity Atum is written in Egyptian jtm, which, based on the Greek version of the city of Pithom (patoumos), should almost certainly be emended to *jtwm. If the deity be named *jtwm, we can analyze the name as consisting of jt, "father", and *wm, *mother (cf. Sumerian um, "mother"; Arabic ?ummatun, "mother"), i.e. "father- mother".

But there is also other evidence. In the story of the creation of the gods and world by Ra', who is alone, he says: "the habitual object of my copulation was my shadow (author's translation)". "Shadow" in Egyptian (Swy.t) is feminine.

Egyptian:

t3t3j.t(better, d3d3j.t).n.j m Swy.t.j

(Budge 1969, I, p. 310)

HEBREW

In general terms, the original creator-god of the Hebrew tradition is associated with the North Star and the Circumpolar Regions by the description of his residence in the yarkthêi tsaphôn, "farthest extremities of the North" (Psalms 48, 3, Isaiah 14, 13); and the detail that sacrifices to him are to be made to him on the north side of the altar in the temple (Leviticus 1, 11). This is the pars pro toto substitution of the center of the North (North Star/Circumpolar Regions) for the celestial ocean that we often see (Egyptian R[j]' and R[j]'.t for Jnw[nw] and [J]nw.t).

There is hardly a point in attempting to find an explicit mention of a female primal (celestial ocean) principle of the creation in this tradition as it currently stands; it is disguised as "deep" (Hebrew tehôm) as we have seen in Creation (1). And, even Akkadian Apsû can be glimpsed as aphsayim.

GREEK

"...black-winged Night ("nothing"), a goddess of whom even Zeus stands in awe,²

was courted by the Wind and laid a silver egg ("North Star") in the womb of Darkness;

... that Eros, whom some call Phanes ("torch"), was hatched from this egg and set the Universe in motion.

Eros was double-sexed...Night, who named him Ericepaius and Protogenus Phaëthon ("first-born gleaming"), ³ lived in a cave with him..."

(in Graves 1959, I, p. 30 [I, 2, The Homeric and Orphic Creation Myths])

FON (AFRICAN: DAHOMEY)

"The world was created by one god, who is at the same time both male and female. This Creator is neither Mawu (moon - female) nor Lisa (sun - male), but is named Nana-Buluku. In time, Nana-Buluku gave birth to twins, who were named Mawu and Lisa."

(in Herskovits 1958, Vol. 2, p. 101)

CHINESE

"At first there was nothing. Time passed and nothing became something. Time passed and something split in two: the two were male and female."

(in Leach 1956, p. 224)

AZTEC

"To the Aztec, creation is the result of complementary opposition and conflict. Much like the dialogue between two individuals, the interaction and exchange between opposites constitute a creative act...the great creator god, Ometeotl, God of Duality...Possessing both the male and female creative principles, Ometeotl was also referred to as the couple Tonacatecuhtli and Tonacacihuatl, Lord and Lady of Our Sustenance. Although Ometeotl constitutes the ultimate source of all, his and her progeny of lesser but still powerful deities perform the actual deeds of creation."

(in Taube 1993, p. 31)

TAHITIAN

" For a long period Ta'aroa dwelt in his shell (crust). It was round like an egg and revolved in space in continuous darkness...and it cracked, and broke open...So he overturned his shell and raised it up to form a dome for the sky and called it Rumia...he slipped out of another shell which covered him, which he took for rock and for sand."

(in Henry 1928, p. 339)

EXPLANATION

1. Sumerian An was normally considered a male sky-god. That his "breasts" are designated, indicates that the earliest conception of An was hermaphroditic, and that he was later functionally equivalent to Apsu/Ti'âmat, who were "were mingling their waters (essences) in one." The Akkadians further substantiated this through the marriage metaphor by pairing An (Akkadian Anum) with a wife, Antum.

a. Though we have no record of the Egyptian deity Hathor (H[w]t-Hrw, "mansion of Horus [the ‘face' = ‘sky']) in this capacity, there are subtle indications that she was once considered Horus' female counterpart.

Budge records that one of the names under which she was known was Herwet (Hrw.t; [Budge 1969, I, p. 432]), and suffixing a -t is the simple Egyptian method of forming a feminine from any masculine noun. Thus, by our interpretation, Hathor would be the female principle which subsequently developed from the masculine sky-god after it had separated as the male principle from the female earth. I do not think that most readers will object to regarding Hathor as secondary on the evidence of her name alone.

Budge also considers Hathor as "the great mother of the world" (Budge 1969, I, p. 431); and in this capacity, as a female sky-goddess, she was complementary to the Egyptian male earth-god, Seb/Geb, whom we shall discuss in the next segment of this essay. Hathor is probably more appropriately paired with Seb/Geb than Nut, who appears properly to be not the female sky- goddess, though that was her later role, but originally the female counterpart to Nu(n), the primeval ocean.



A proper understanding of Hathor allows us, through comparison, to better understand her unique iconography. The unique hairstyle she wears, interpreted purely on the basis of internal Egyptian evidence, is just that; but consider the so-called "omega-symbol" from Mesopotamia:

(Black and Green 1992, p. 146)

the interpretation of this symbol seems fairly secure within a Mesopotamian context. It is associated with goddesses in their capacity as "mother goddesses"; in a dictionary entry under "mother goddesses and birth goddesses", an illustration of a baked clay relief plaque depicts the "Lady of Birth", Nin-tu, flanked by elongated omega-symbols, and what Black and Green interpret as paired newly born humans.

Black and Green go on to explain that: "The term shassûru, meaning in Akkadian literally ‘womb', is sometimes used to refer to the mother goddess herself...in the complex account of the creation of the first seven men and seven women in the Epic of Atra-hasis (Ziusura), the mother goddess is assisted by fourteen shassûrâtu, each of whom oversees the ‘shaping' or ‘preparing' of one of the clay figurines during a period of ten (lunar) months".

(Black and Green 1992, p. 133)

This symbol, almost surely, simply depicts the labia, uterus, and womb of a female; and this interpretation matches its Mesopotamian employment perfectly.

The function of Hathor as a "mother-goddess", and the employment of a similar symbol of her function, seems, if not capable of conclusive proof, at least indicated to be very likely.

Yet, Hathor has none of the attributes of familiar mother-goddesses (frontal, nude portrayals; pronounced breasts and large hips), which are concerned with animal fertility (usually the specific province of lunar goddesses). Hathor is a sky-mother, the female component of the alternate view of the female sky and male earth furthering the creation by their coupling.

2. Almost every myth we shall encounter has elaborated the original myth with additional characters and details. In this Greek version, "Nothing" has been personified as "Night", and "bears" the hermaphroditic Protogenus Phaëthon, who is, of course, equivalent to Egyptian *Jtwm, and Akkadian Anum/Antum; and, who, in non-Greek versions, is self-engendered.

3. Early man could not conceive of method of generation outside his own experience; therefore, the earliest being had to combine both male and female qualities in order for further generation to occur.

4. Unfortunately for women, some later religious philosophizers, predisposed through personal psychological and emotional insecurity to feelings of guilt, transposed their inner turmoil onto the scheme of the creation; and imagined a universe motivated by the duality of good and evil. When superimposed on the original duality of male and female, females were sadly associated with the principle of evil.

5. A secondary theme that occurs quite frequently in this context is that the animate medium, in which the being created itself, was in motion: and this motion is described as revolving, and with metaphors suggesting revolving: "...Eurynome...dancing lonely upon its waves."

(in Graves 1959, I, p. 27 [I, 1, The Pelasgian Creation Myth])

This is one of many indications that the North Pole and the revolving Northern Circumpolar Regions were considered to be the site of the original creation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Black, Jeremy and Green, Anthony. 1992. Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia. Austin. University of Texas Press.

Budge, E. A. Wallis. 1969 [1904]. The Gods of the Egyptians — or Studies in Egyptian Mythology, 2 vol. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.

Graves, Robert. 1959. The Greek Myths. 2 vol. New York: George Braziller, Inc.

Graves, Robert, and Patai, Raphael. 1983. Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis. New York: Greenwich House (distributed by Crown Publishers, Inc.)

Henry, Teuira. 1928. Ancient Tahiti. Bernice P. Bishop Bulletin 48. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press

Herskovits, Melville J. 1958. Dahomey. 2 vol. New York: J. J. Augustin

Jacobsen, Thorkild. 1976. The Treasures of Darkness - A History of Mesopotamian Religion. New Haven and London: Yale University Press

Leach, Maria. 1956. The Beginning. New York: Funk and Wagnalls

Taube, Karl. 1993. Aztec and Maya Myths. Avon: The Bath Press

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