Eating oaths and transgressions

The use of the verb akālu ‘to eat’ with certain terms denoting taboos or transgressions against the gods, namely ikkibu, anzillu, and asakku, is a relatively widely attested phenomenon in Akkadian.Footnote ¹ In a legal text from Mari, the term nīšum ‘oath’ also occurs as object of the verb akālum, and Dominique Charpin has suggested that this phraseology could have its origins in ritual acts of eating that accompanied oath-taking ceremonies.Footnote ² In other Old Babylonian texts, in addition to nīšum and asakkum, the logographic writing sar^meš also occurs as the object of the verbs akālu and tamûm ‘to swear’, which Charpin interprets as referring to plants eaten when the oath was sworn as a guarantee against breaking it.Footnote ³ This oath-taking ceremony could have involved other ritual acts of eating, drinking, or anointing with oil in order to ‘materialize’ the curse.Footnote ⁴ A similar idea is described in the Succession Treaty of Esarhaddon (SAA 2 6, 560–562):Footnote ⁵

The curse section of the treaty contains a number of metaphors for the consequences of breaking the oath, and it has been suggested that some of the actions may have been symbolically acted out as part of the treaty ceremony.Footnote ⁶ However, it was not necessary for bread and wine to have been literally consumed for this passage to serve as a powerful image discouraging violation of the oath. Instead, it plays on the notion that ‘eating’ an oath could introduce something into the intestines that would cause physical harm if the oath was subsequently broken.Footnote ⁷ Even if such actions were not always undertaken when an oath was sworn,Footnote ⁸ the idea has apparently left its mark on the language and so it is therefore possible that the use of the verb akālu with terms for transgression or taboo may reflect a conceptual origin in oath violation, as is the case with māmītu. However, the use of akālu in expressions denoting ‘committing a transgression’ or ‘violating a taboo’ should be regarded as metaphorical and does not necessarily require any relation to literal acts of eating.Footnote ⁹ Despite this, we do find examples of transgressions connected to eating in a way that references and builds upon these metaphors, aligning with Ricoeur's understanding of metaphor not simply as linguistic decoration or ornament but as an element of language that contains “semantic innovation” and therefore has “the power of redefining reality”.Footnote ¹⁰

The actualization of eating metaphors is famously exemplified by the story of the snake and the eagle in the Etana Epic, in which the latter commits a transgression by eating the former's offspring. This episode has previously been recognized by Abraham Winitzer as representing “an enactment of the idiom for taboo violation … with the text actualizing the metaphor's literal sense to drive home its point.”Footnote ¹¹ Significantly for the present discussion, the agreement between the two animals, which the eagle then violates, is described as a māmītu (SV II 22):Footnote ¹² giš-par-ru ma-mit ^dŠamaš(utu) lib-bal-ki-tu-šu-ma ⸢li ₂^?⸣-[ba-ru-šu ₂] ‘may the snares of the māmītu of Šamaš fall upon him and [trap him].’ The violation of the oath is described with an eating metaphor (SV II 128):Footnote ¹³ an-zil-la ša ₂ ilānī(dingir)^meš a-sak-ku ta-⸢kul⸣ ‘you ate an anzillu of the gods, an asakku.’ This provides an explicit linguistic connection with the transgression itself (SV II 51):Footnote ¹⁴ ⸢u ₂⸣-ri-dam-ma e-ta-kal mārī(dumu)[^meš ša ₂ ṣēri(muš)] ‘he flew down and then ate the son[s of the snake].’ Another well-known example, also referenced by Winitzer,Footnote ¹⁵ comes from a letter to Zimri-Lim (ARM 26/1 No. 206).Footnote ¹⁶ The sender describes an ecstatic eating a living lamb (11–12) to visually demonstrate the threat of plague (18: ukultum, lit. ‘devouring’)Footnote ¹⁷ that will occur unless certain sacred or taboo items are returned (20: asakkam literrū). The initial transgression is thus related to eating both literally (i.e. the ecstatic eating the lamb) and figuratively (i.e. the plague as gods ‘devouring’ their victims). In these two cases we can see how taboo violations, often expressed metaphorically in terms of eating, could simultaneously be imagined to be actualized through literal acts of eating. The idea that a transgression could be literally eaten will be important for establishing the reasoning behind the association of māmītu with abdominal symptoms.

Māmītu as broken oath and transgression

The term māmītu, although never explicitly combined with the verb akālu, nevertheless bears a close conceptual relation to the above examples, since it could refer originally to a broken oath but also by extension to the consequences of transgression against divine order.Footnote ¹⁸ The Akkadian term māmītu is ultimately derived from one of the related roots ʾwʾ or wmʾ, which occur in various verbal forms with meanings relating generally to speech but often specifically meaning ‘to swear (an oath)’.Footnote ¹⁹ In bilingual texts, the Akkadian term corresponds to two Sumerian terms, saĝ-ba, probably to be understood literally as meaning ‘on its head’, and nam-erim₂ (also abbreviated to nam-rim/ri), which can be interpreted as ‘state of evil’ or ‘evil fate’. These two Sumerian terms seem to have once had separate meanings, with the former referring to a ‘curse’ and the latter to an actual oath, before they both came to align more closely with the semantic range of Akkadian māmītu and thus also to refer to the evil force released by the breaking of an oath.Footnote ²⁰ It is in this sense that the latter term appears in the Sumerian rubric nam-erim₂-bur₂-ru-da, literally ‘(ritual) to release namerim’, which is applied to many of the textual sources addressed in this article.Footnote ²¹

The concept represented by māmītu can therefore be understood in terms of the act and consequences not only of breaking or falsely swearing an oath but also of any transgression against divine order, leading to a variety of translations in the modern literature. Erica Reiner, in her edition of Šurpu, translates māmītu as ‘oath’ but is not entirely satisfied with this translation, often using scare quotes in contexts where a literal oath is unlikely to be intended.Footnote ²² Stefan Maul, in his recent edition of namerimburruda-texts, understands it in terms of the consequence of breaking or falsely swearing an oath,Footnote ²³ and while the subtitle reflects this (Die Therapie eines auf eidliche Falschaussage zurückgeführten Leidens), he otherwise translates it “Bann”, rejecting the narrower semantic range of English ‘curse’ and German ‘Fluch’.Footnote ²⁴ Some scholars have picked up on the power of māmītu as an external force that punishes broken oaths or transgressions.Footnote ²⁵ Jean Bottéro distinguishes between two aspects of māmītu: the quasi-autonomous ‘curse’ imposed by the gods as a “punition surnaturelle” and the “interdits coûtumiers” which, if violated, the curse would serve to punish.Footnote ²⁶ Tzvi Abusch follows a similar line, understanding māmītu to refer to behavioural stipulations that one is bound by oath to observe under the threat of divine punishment.Footnote ²⁷ Vérène Chalendar recognizes that the concept of māmītu extended beyond the literal oath, noting that while one would not swear oaths every day, the chances of committing a transgression were relatively high.Footnote ²⁸ Others have combined multiple aspects of māmītu in double translations like “oath-cum-curse”Footnote ²⁹ and “Bannfluch”.Footnote ³⁰ Ultimately, it has been decided to leave the term untranslated here since the precise connotations are not entirely relevant to the overall discussion.

However it is translated, the general sense of māmītu as a broken oath or transgression is implied by its inclusion in litany-like lists of possible sources of the patient's suffering in incantations of Šurpu (e.g. VIII 79–80), where it appears alongside other terminology for transgressions, sins, crimes, and oaths (ikkibu, anzillu, arnu, šērtu, gillatu, ḫiṭītu, nīšu). In addition, the very first entry in the litany of possible transgressions in Šurpu emphasizes the importance of other forms of transgression in a ritual that otherwise focuses on māmītu (Šurpu II 5): ikkib(nig₂.gig) ili(dingir)-šu ₂ i-ku-lu ikkib(nig₂.gig) ^dištari(15)-šu ₂ i-ku-lu ‘(who) ate ikkibu of his (personal) god, (who) ate ikkibu of his (personal) goddess.’ The term māmītu appears in apposition to asakku in a commentary on the extispicy series Multābiltu (CCP 3.4.10.A.b iv 13′):Footnote ³¹ marṣu(gig) ma-mit asakku(a₂.sag₃) iṣbat(dab)-su imât(ug₇) ‘the patient, māmītu, asakku has seized him – he will die.’ The logographic spelling of asakku here suggests that the demon is meant, but the demon has probably become combined with the transgression as a personified form of the punishment.Footnote ³² An important aspect of māmītu, then, are the consequences of a broken oath or transgression against the gods, which in many cases would include symptoms of abdominal illness.

Abdominal symptoms of māmītu and their treatment

The divinely imposed punishment for transgression could manifest in a number of ways, from a breakdown in the sufferer's relationship with the gods to exclusion from normal human society. A wide range of medical symptoms could also be attributed to the result of transgression, and in the diagnostic series Sakikku certain forms of transgression could be connected to specific symptoms by means of straightforward analogy. For example, transgressions that have been ‘trodden on’ (kabāsu) are associated with symptoms of the foot,Footnote ³³ while sexual offences involving cultic personnel usually cause symptoms of the genitals or pelvis.Footnote ³⁴ The exorcistic sources, by contrast, are less concerned with specific acts of transgression and the descriptions of medical symptoms attributed to divine punishment can be more vague and all-encompassing. However, there is a particularly strong correlation between transgressions and broken oaths on the one hand and abdominal symptoms on the other, something that has already been recognized in other contexts.Footnote ³⁵ Indeed, a systematic analysis of the therapeutic namerimburruda-texts demonstrates that a majority of the symptoms and treatments that can be attributed to māmītu relate in some way to the abdomen or digestive tract.Footnote ³⁶

The therapeutic texts relevant to māmītu have been published as KAL 10, Nr. 70–80. The diagnoses in KAL 10, Nr. 70–72 almost entirely concern abdominal and gastrointestinal symptoms, which are attributed to seizure by māmītu (amēlu šū māmītu iṣbatsu)Footnote ³⁷ and are treated by oral laxatives or enemas.Footnote ³⁸ The shorter texts KAL 10, Nr. 73–74 and Nr. 75 concentrate on fever-like symptoms and paralysis, but the diagnoses of ‘hand of māmītu’ (šu.nam.erim₂/rim.ma)Footnote ³⁹ are supplemented by alternative diagnoses of durugiqqu-illness, which was associated with the lower part of the body,Footnote ⁴⁰ and they were also treated with enemas.Footnote ⁴¹ Several treatments, including enemas,Footnote ⁴² a salve,Footnote ⁴³ and a drink,Footnote ⁴⁴ are prescribed in KAL 10, Nr. 76–77 for diarrhoea attributed to being ill with māmītu (šumma amēlu māmīta … maruṣ).Footnote ⁴⁵ The collection KAL 10, Nr. 78 contains various symptom descriptions to be treated with enemas and suppositories, but only one, involving symptoms of the bladder, abdomen, and anus, is explicitly connected to māmītu.Footnote ⁴⁶ Finally, two sections of KAL 10, Nr. 80 give ‘hand of māmītu’ as a diagnosis:Footnote ⁴⁷ one concerns symptoms of the eye while the other involves the intestines and abdomen.Footnote ⁴⁸ Abdominal symptoms attributed to māmītu in the therapeutic namerimburruda-texts include: fever (ummu) in the epigastrium (rēš libbi);Footnote ⁴⁹ pain or slackening of the piṭru;Footnote ⁵⁰ wind (šāru) in the abdomen;Footnote ⁵¹ inflammation or swelling of the intestines (qerbū ebṭū/ittananpaḫū);Footnote ⁵² constriction of the bladder (ḫiniqti ellabuḫḫi);Footnote ⁵³ inflation of the abdomen (esilti libbi);Footnote ⁵⁴ and other symptoms associated with durugiqqu-illness.

The abdominal focus of māmītu is also reflected in problems relating to digestion and appetite. This could include diarrhoea, described in terms of food being poured straight out to the anus (ana šuburrīšu utabbak),Footnote ⁵⁵ constant vomiting (uttanār),Footnote ⁵⁶ an inability to eat or digest solids or liquids,Footnote ⁵⁷ a full abdomen (libbīšu mali),Footnote ⁵⁸ and a reduced desire or capacity for eating and drinking (akala u šikara muṭṭu).Footnote ⁵⁹ In one case, it is implied that these symptoms also cause malnutrition and physical wasting, as māmītu is given the epithet šaḫḫiḫu,Footnote ⁶⁰ an illness designation deriving from the verb šaḫāḫu ‘to disintegrate, waste away’.Footnote ⁶¹ While we might be inclined to attribute some forms of eating disturbance to psychological factors, they are probably to be understood here in terms of māmītu being localized in the digestive tract.

A number of more obviously psychological and emotional symptoms are attributed to māmītu, probably because the abdomen (libbu) was considered the seat of emotions.Footnote ⁶² The frequent juxtaposition of psychological symptoms with physical symptoms of the body, especially of the abdomen, suggests that emotions could be physically embodied in that part of the body.Footnote ⁶³ In one namerimburruda-ritual, symptoms like depression, insomnia, and general mental unwellness (lā ṭūb libbi) are described alongside general bodily unwellness (lā ṭūb šīri) and physical affliction of the abdomen (ṣibit libbi).Footnote ⁶⁴ Emotional and psychological symptoms are also a key part of the picture of suffering described in incantations of the Šurpu ritual,Footnote ⁶⁵ and in one passage of Ludlul bēl nēmeqi (I 109–114) emotional symptoms including uncontrollable crying, depression, and bouts of fear and panic are juxtaposed with trembling and burning of the internal organs.Footnote ⁶⁶ Although both of these texts concern divine punishment and transgression, they are focussed more on appealing to the gods for mercy rather than medical treatment of symptoms. Nevertheless, the passages cited further reflect the strong association with abdominal and emotional symptoms in the Mesopotamian scholars’ conceptualization of māmītu and the consequences of transgression more broadly.

The association between māmītu and abdominal symptoms is also strongly reflected in the nature of the treatments prescribed for māmītu and associated illnesses.Footnote ⁶⁷ These included emetics and laxatives administered orally, in a suppository, or as an enema. Oral emetics consisted of medicinal plants mixed into water or beer, which were then drunk by the patient to induce vomiting.Footnote ⁶⁸ Due to difficulties with their identification, we cannot say whether any of these plants had inherent emetic properties, but in one case the exorcist apparently induces vomiting by tickling the patient's throat with a feather.Footnote ⁶⁹ Laxatives could also be administered orally, with the patient usually drinking the mixture on an empty stomach and then having a bowel movement (ina šuburri šūšuru, lit. ‘to cause to go straight out of the anus’).Footnote ⁷⁰ The orally administered medicines are often referred to as mašqīt māmīti ‘drink of māmītu’.Footnote ⁷¹ A few treatments for ‘hand of māmītu’ and durugiqqu-illness call for the medicaments to be incorporated into a suppository (allānu, lit. ‘acorn’) and inserted into the patient's anus, often with cypress oil as a lubricant.Footnote ⁷²

A more common means of administering medicines for treating abdominal symptoms of māmītu was the enema. This usually consisted of plants mixed with beer and oil that were ‘poured into the anus’ (ana šuburri šapāku), causing the patient to have a purgative bowel movement (ina šuburri šūšuru).Footnote ⁷³ How the enema was actually administered is rarely mentioned but some of the tools attested include a flute-shaped reed wrapped in cloth (embūbu) and a “leather hose” (mašqītu), which was used to administer enemas to both horses and humans.Footnote ⁷⁴ Occasionally, the treatment is described as a ‘wash’ (marḫaṣu), or is otherwise qualified by the verb raḫāṣu ‘to wash’.Footnote ⁷⁵ The widespread use of enemas to treat abdominal symptoms of māmītu contrasts with the situation for witchcraft which, although also causing symptoms in parts of the abdomen,Footnote ⁷⁶ is almost never treated with enemas.Footnote ⁷⁷ This pattern, first suggested by Daniel Schwemer,Footnote ⁷⁸ can now be confirmed with the full publication of the Corpus and Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft Rituals.Footnote ⁷⁹ Witchcraft appears not to have been located as deep in the digestive tract as māmītu, meaning it did not require enemas but could be treated simply with emetics.Footnote ⁸⁰ This further supports the argument that the illness caused by māmītu was situated further down in the abdomen where enemas were often required to remove it. Enemas, like emetics and laxatives, would have had a physical effect in flushing harmful substances out of the body but in some cases may have been used more symbolically, to represent the ‘magical’ removal of impurities or evil from the patient.Footnote ⁸¹ This reflects a tendency to perceive illness as a physical substance that has infiltrated the body,Footnote ⁸² a conception of illness that will also be relevant to some of the medical metaphors discussed below.

Overall, according to both symptom descriptions and the nature of treatments prescribed, there was a strong tendency for māmītu to be associated with abdominal and gastrointestinal symptoms. Symptoms associated with māmītu included physical pain, inflammation, and fevers in the abdomen, problems with digestion and eating, and emotional problems which were also understood to originate in the abdominal area. Treatments included emetics, laxatives, and suppositories, but enemas had a particularly strong association with māmītu in contrast to other sources of illness. Such symptoms and treatments are not exclusive to māmītu, as alternative diagnoses within the namerimburruda-texts attest to, nor are the possible symptoms of māmītu entirely limited to abdominal problems. However, exorcistic texts tend to have an all-encompassing approach to make the treatments as widely applicable as possible, and this should not detract from the overall pattern. Indeed, the overall association between māmītu and abdominal symptoms can also be confirmed by the wider connection between transgressions and broken oaths on the one hand and eating metaphors on the other hand, which provides an aetiology for these symptoms of māmītu.

Metaphor and analogy in Mesopotamian medicine

An explanation for the strong connection between māmītu and abdominal symptoms is perhaps to be found in the use of eating metaphors to describe oaths and transgressions. In Mesopotamia, metaphors were frequently employed in both day-to-day and technical language to structure thoughts and convey embodied experience.Footnote ⁸³ Especially in medicine, metaphors could be used to express understanding of the workings of illness or the body where the precise biological processes were not observable or fully understood.Footnote ⁸⁴ Metaphors could also serve to bridge knowledge gaps between the medical professional and the patient, ensuring that there was a degree of mutual understanding.Footnote ⁸⁵ One category of metaphor that is frequently employed in Mesopotamian medical texts to describe internal illnesses is the comparison of internal organs to vessels or containers. For example, a patient with diarrhoea or a bleeding womb could be described as a waterskin with its neck untied or a fermentation vessel with its stopper removed.Footnote ⁸⁶ This idea is also found in a common formulaic element of incantations accompanying purification rites, for transgression and other sources of suffering, in which the patient is compared to a vessel to be cleaned out.Footnote ⁸⁷ In other cases, the alimentary canal could be conceived as a watercourse running from the mouth to the anus, with blockages correspondingly described in terms of environmental metaphors.Footnote ⁸⁸ These are examples of metaphors that seek to explain biological process that are largely invisible and inaccessible, since they take place inside the body.

In Mesopotamian medical thought, however, such language would not have been construed as purely metaphorical, but was rather an integral part of conceptualizing the body in a way that also informed treatment, especially in terms of symbolic ritual actions.Footnote ⁸⁹ In this context, the fact that eating metaphors could be used to describe certain forms of transgression could provide a key conceptual basis for identifying māmītu as a possible cause of abdominal symptoms. The process here is somewhat more complex than the situations described in the previous paragraph. The term māmītu is never used in combination with the verb akālu, so is itself not directly connected to eating, but has a similar semantic range to terms that are. The notion that transgressions could be ‘eaten’, whether figuratively or literally (as in the examples from Etana and Mari), provides an explanation for how a source of illness might enter the digestive tract and cause abdominal symptoms. As a form of transgression or broken oath, māmītu could therefore be understood to function in the same way and be identified as a primary cause of abdominal illness. Walter Farber has identified a comparable example of metaphor influencing reality, where a term for infectious disease (muštaḫḫizum) was reinterpreted in terms of ritual acts of symbolically marrying the patient to a disease or demon “in a typically Mesopotamian process of associative and speculative philology”.Footnote ⁹⁰ Such interpretations of metaphor are possible when both language and reality are understood to reflect the will of the gods, something that also allowed for the interpretation of omens by means of metaphor, analogy, and wordplay.Footnote ⁹¹ For Mesopotamian scholars, etymology and linguistic features were evidence of inherent truths about the structure of reality.Footnote ⁹² Linguistic expressions, including metaphor, could be used to generate new conceptual expressions of the workings of the world.Footnote ⁹³ The association of māmītu with abdominal illness on the basis of eating metaphors is therefore an important example of how this system of thought could be applied to understanding the workings of illness and the body in Mesopotamian medicine.