Pretty much every mythos on the planet has at one point attempted to answer Baby's First Existential
Question: where did we come from? Simple on paper, since the answer is typically "your parents",
but in practice, that simple question opens up a cascade of OTHER questions of increasingly
existential complexity. Where did the parents come from? Where did THEIR parents come from?
We can extrapolate pretty simply that somewhere along the line there had to be a First Person
to be the First Parent, so where did THEY come from? Where did the WORLD come from,
and what's our place in it, and why are we LIKE this? Why are some people different from
other people, and what does that mean? And before we knew about evolution,
this was a doozy of a conundrum all right. Plenty of answers have been proposed. Many
myths posit that humans were originally created by some benevolent deity, sculpted from clay or
wood or other earthly materials. In some other stories, humans instead arise by accident,
a collateral consequence from some divine struggle. Pretty much the only consistent theme
is that the creation of humanity is usually pretty quick and simple, even glossed-over, because from
a worldbuilding angle it doesn't really need to be complicated. Once you get a couple humans,
you usually get more humans pretty quick, so that’s really all we need to explain where the
rest of the people come from. Not many stories really feel the need to get much more detailed.
But there are exceptions! Today let's talk about a Sumerian creation myth that goes
into EXTREME detail about the creation of humanity and all that that entails.
So the story begins shortly after the creation of heaven and earth, and the gods are very
busy digging canals, dredging clay and overall really living that glamorous divine life. Well,
except for Enki, primordial god of water, who's been napping in his private water
dimension the whole time. Enki's mom Namma hears the gods complaining about Enki slacking off and
goes to passive-aggressively slap him awake and convince him to do something about it.
Enki wakes up, assesses the situation, draws up some blueprints for something that'll be really
good at digging canals and hands them off to Namma, presumably before rolling over and going
back to sleep for five more minutes. Namma, with the help of Enki's design and several other gods,
sculpts the first humans out of clay and puts them to work doing all that tough canal stuff.
Now that they've discovered the art of delegation, the gods relax and throw a big party. Everyone's
super happy with Enki for coming up with this plan, and he's praised for his wisdom and how
good he is at deciding everyone's destinies. So Enki parties it up and gets super drunk, and so
does his wife Ninmah, goddess of mountains and one of the co-creators of humanity, and pretty soon,
Enki and Ninmah are both super plastered and ready to make some questionable decisions. Ninmah's like
"listen up, you… you LISTEN. I can do whatever I want, right? I’m a goddess. I can make a dude
with whateeeeever fate I want, good OR bad." And Enki's like "oh yeah? Well anything YOU can do
I can..... do something OTHER than that. So like. I can. I can make anyone have ANY fate. No matter
WHAT you do. So if you do something bad? I can give ‘em something good. How 'bout THAT?”
So Ninmah grabs a big sloppy handful of that primordial creation clay and
starts making dudes willy nilly. First up she makes a dude whose hands don't work,
and Enki thinks this dude would actually be a perfect addition to the King’s court,
since what with his whole hand situation, he won’t be able to steal the King’s stuff,
so he’s a perfect candidate for a trusted adviser. Next up, Ninmah makes a blind guy, but Enki gives
him prodigious musical skill and puts him in the king's court too.
Third up is a guy whose feet don't work, and Enki makes him a skilled silversmith
and also a courtier to the king. And I'm - I'm not here to sass or judge,
but I think Enki might be being a biiiiit uncreative with these good fates. Ninmah should
try making someone with a healthy disrespect for authority, see what Enki does about that.
Anyway, fourth up she makes a guy whose dong doesn't work, but Enki dumps a load of magic
water over him which fixes that up real nice. Apparently weenis-doesn’t-work disease is caused
by minor demonic possession. The more you know! Then Ninmah mixes things up a bit and makes
an infertile woman. Enki makes her a skilled weaver and puts her in the harem of the queen.
Finally, Ninmah creates an intersex person who Enki - you guessed it - places in the
King's court in some kind of position of honor - the text is both unclear
and physically broken in places, so hey, we’re doing our best. Side note,
this king better be a good boss or Enki’s gonna be real disappointed.
So Ninmah's pretty pissed, but Enki's not done yet. He takes the last of the clay and
creates a very, very busted-up dude named Umul. Umul is what is medically classified as a “hot
mess”, with basically no functional organs. Ninmah tries to talk to him,
but Umul is too messed up to understand her, and Ninmah is very frustrated,
accusing Enki of making someone neither alive nor dead. Since Ninmah fails to find a way to
counterbalance Umul's messed-up fate, while Enki was able to guarantee good
lives for all of her creations, Ninmah loses the competition and Enki is praised as the highest,
coolest god around. And so is his dick, for some reason. Thanks, mesopotamia!
[Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better]