by Cory O'Brien
ENKI AND NIMMAH PARTY FAR TOO HEARTILY
So when last we left our Sumerian gods
they were all busy stealing each other and crashing boats and prank-sexing each other in costumes.
But in the interim things seem to have slowed down a bit.
Now all the gods are working in the fields for minimum wage
just so that they can get something to EAT.
Wait, what?
These are the gods we are talking about
the asshole children with superpowers who run the universe
and here they are, SHARECROPPING?
What gives?
Well, that’s exactly what all the gods are saying to themselves
when suddenly, it hits them:
This kind of boring shit is what PEOPLE are for
And they TOTALLY FORGOT TO INVENT THOSE.
So they get some clay
and they mold it into some dude shapes
and then they stick it in a mother goddess for a while
and BOOM
PEOPLE!
So now the gods have someone to do all the farmwork for them
and they can get back to the preferred Sumerian pastime:
PARTYING.
Everybody gets pretty wasted
especially Enki and this womb goddess named Nimmah.
So they’re hitting on each other in the way only drunk people can:
Nimmah is like “DUDE YOU ARE SO WORTHLESS.
WITHOUT MY SICK WOMB SKILLS ALL THE DUDES WOULD BE DEFORMED.”
And Enki is like “PISH POSH, MY FRIEND.
YOU CAN MAKE DUDES AS DEFORMED AS YOU PLEASE
AND I CAN STILL FIND JOBS FOR THEM.”
So obviously this turns into a contest.
Nimmah goes about trying to invent the most messed-up dudes she can
and Enki is passing out jobs like a prostitute on a hot streak.
It’s like
Parkinson’s?
GRAND VIZIER.
No dick?
ROYAL GUARD.
No eyes?
WOMAN, HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF A DUDE BY THE NAME OF HOMER?
So this goes on for a while
and finally Nimmah is like “Ugh, fine.
I guess god CAN’T make a dude so messed up that even he can’t employ him.”
And Enki is like “Not so fast, sugarpants. Let me try.”
And he picks up the clay
and he just makes the most utterly hideous sack of meat and pain
ever to grace the flesh circus.
This thing’s spine is all crooked and its hands are shaking
and its butthole is all caved in and it can’t walk without its feet busting open.
Nimmah tries to feed it some bread but it can’t even EAT.
And Nimmah is like “Whoa, dude, what’s your secret?”
And Enki is like “Oh, I just didn’t put it in a womb ’cause I don’t have one.
This baby is PREMATURE.”
And Nimmah’s like “Oh . . .
Oh god.
It is just now dawning on me how completely gross this all is.
Let’s try to never do this again, okay?”
But joke’s on them, because that stuff still happens.
Except that as is usually the case when the joke is on the gods
the joke is actually on us.
So the moral of the story
is that you should never get drunk when you have superpowers.
GILGAMESH AND ENKIDU: ULTIMATE BROMANCE
Oh my gods and goddesses.
Have you heard about this Gilgamesh guy?
Seriously, the ancient Sumerians actually describe him
as a dude who is “perfect in awesomeness.”
Also, his dad is some random dude but his mom is a goddess who bangs his dad SO HARD
that Gilgamesh is TWO-THIRDS GOD AND ONE-THIRD HUMAN
THAT’S RIGHT
they bone with SUCH FURIOUS DEDICATION that they DESTROY MATH.
But here is the problem, guys:
Gilgamesh is such a badass
he cannot comprehend how people can be ANY LESS BADASS THAN HE
so he makes all the dudes in the city he is king of constantly do feats of strength with him
and also there is a law that Gilgamesh gets to bone everyone’s wives.
So everyone’s bitching to the goddess Eiru like “Hey, Eiru
can you make a dude who is a bad enough dude to cockwrestle Gilgamesh?
Because we are worried that if you do not Gilgamesh will sex us all to death.”
And Eiru is like “WELL I was wondering what to do with this rock I have.
BOOM. NOW IT IS A PERSON.”
This guy that Eiru creates is called Enkidu
and he is basically just Cousin Itt from The Addams Family
if Cousin Itt had the ability to TEAR YOU IN HALF AND THEN FEED YOU TO YOURSELF.
He pretty much just runs screaming through the forest punching bears, every day
until one day some namby-pamby hunter sees him drinking water with all his sweet animal pals
and the hunter is like “THAT DUDE IS SO MANLY HE MADE MY GUN GO LIMP”
And he goes and asks someone else to help him get rid of this hairy dude
but the dude he is whining to is like “Dude, chill OUT.
Just go hit up Gilgamesh for one of his many, many whores
and then get Enkidu to bang that whore
and then all his animal magnetism will get sucked into the whore.
BOOM. SCIENCE.”
So the hunter goes to Gilgamesh, who hooks him up with an exceedingly legitimate ho
and he brings her back to the ol’ watering hole
and she flashes her tits at Enkidu
and then they proceed to bang for SEVEN DAYS STRAIGHT
and afterward the ho makes Enkidu take a shower
which scares away all his animal pals because animals do not like hygiene.
So Enkidu is like “Damn, I gots to find me the source of all these comely hos.”
so he goes back to Gilgamesh’s kingdom
where Gilgamesh is right in the middle of trying to bang some dude’s wife
and Enkidu shows up like “Dude what the hell are you doing?
WANNA BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER INSTEAD?”
And Gilgamesh is like “YESSSS.”
so they punch at each other until they get tired of gargling their own teeth and then decide to be BFFs.
I am not a scientist, but this may be why women live longer than men.
Anyway, their first act as ULTIMATE BESTIES
is to walk all the way across the known world to punch Humbaba, the magic tree guardian.
Humbaba is not a bad dude or anything
he’s really more like those hippies that chain themselves to live oaks and whatnot
except he has INTESTINES all over his face
and his breath is a combination of DEATH and FIRE.
Anyway, Gilgamesh and Enkidu skip off toward this sacred cedar tree
LITERALLY HOLDING HANDS.
IT IS ADORABLE.
They skip for LEAGUES AND LEAGUES AND LEAGUES
and Gilgamesh keeps waking up in the middle of the night like “BRO, I HAD A BAD DREAM
IT WAS ABOUT VOLCANOS OR FIRE-BREATHING BIRDS OR LIGHTNING OR SOMETHING.”
And Enkidu is like “Naw, bro, those are totally sweet and appropriate things to dream about.”
BUT THEN THEY FINALLY FIND HUMBABA’S FOREST
and Humbaba pops out like “’Sup.”
And then this god Shamash who is apparently the sun god
suddenly shows up and hits Humbaba with ALL THE WINDS.
First there’s the winds you would expect like north, south, east, etc.
Then there’s some kinda reasonable stuff like blizzard, storm, and sandstorm.
But then shit really flies off the handle and we get whistling wind, ice wind, demon wind
&n
bsp; and just straight up BAD WIND.
Anyway, all those winds immobilize Humbaba in an aethereal bukkake throwdown
so Gilgamesh is about to chop off Humbaba’s head
and Humbaba is like “DUDE WE ARE IN A FOREST.
THERE IS WOOD LITERALLY COMING OUT OF OTHER WOOD.
YOU DO NOT NEED TO MURDER ME FOR THIS SPECIFIC TREE.”
But Gilgamesh murders him anyway
and then he’s like “Sweet now I can use this tree to make a huge door.
I don’t really have a place to put a huge door right now
but like my grand-pappy used to say:
‘You never know when you’re gonna need a really huge door.’”
So they’re back at home, enjoying this sweet door and also each other’s company
when Ishtar has to come along and fuck it all up.
(Ishtar, by the way is the goddess of basically everything worth doing:
sex, war, and babies.
Wait, I don’t mean that you should do babies, though. That is gross/illegal.)
So Ishtar is like “HEY, GILGAMESH I HAVE THIS GAPING HOLE IN MY BODY
I’M WORRIED IT MIGHT JUST START SHOOTING OUT MY ORGANS OR SOMETHING
I HEAR YOU HAVE SOMETHING ABOUT THE RIGHT SIZE TO PLUG THIS HOLE
IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.”
And Gilgamesh is like “Whoa, girl, slow your roll.
Your tits are exceedingly fine but I am aware of a little something called history
and history tells us that every dude you have banged
has either caught on fire or turned into a dwarf.
I am sure there are dongs aplenty in this kingdom of mine.
Go nuts.
Just steer clear of MY nuts.”
So Ishtar goes up to Godtowne and she is like “GUYS GILGAMESH WON’T STUFF MY MUFF.
GIVE ME THE BULL OF HEAVEN SO I CAN GO RUIN EVERYTHING.”
Yeah, apparently they keep this bull around for if they ever need to ruin everything
and the gods are pretty laissez-faire about how it gets used
so Ishtar drags the bull down to earth
and Gilgamesh eventually sees it after it’s killed like a million people
and then he and Enkidu are like “BEST BUDS TAG-TEAM MURDERCYCLE YEAH!”
and they handle the bull to pieces in a matter of seconds, and steal its horns
and then they high-five so hard that another thousand or so people die.
BUT ALL IS NOT WELL, MY FRIENDS
because tonight it is ENKIDU’S TURN TO HAVE THE DREAMS.
He dreams that the gods are all sitting around talking
and they’re like “Man,
Enkidu and Gilgamesh are a two-man meatgrinder grindin’ up all our best abominations.
We gotta kill one of them, but we can’t kill Gilgamesh his name is in the title.
Guess we better kill Enkidu, huh?”
And Enkidu wakes up like “THERE IS NO POSSIBLE WAY TO INTERPRET THIS FAVORABLY.”
Then he gets real sick and he dies.
Now, we all know about the nine stages of grief or whatever
but those are for CHUMPS.
Gilgamesh’s grieving process has three steps:
Step one: Cry about it.
Step two: Make everyone else cry about it using your fists.
Step three: SEEK IMMORTALITY.
So he goes and talks smack to some scorpion dudes, who let him walk through a mountain
and then on the other side he finds THE WATERS OF DEATH
which is probably not the first place I would look if I were searching for immortality
but anyway, there is an inn there
and Gilgamesh threatens the innkeeper until she tells him how to get across the water
and then he threatens the guy who can get him across the water
and then he has to rebuild the boat he destroyed while threatening that guy
but finally they sail to the other side which is where Gilgamesh was trying to get, apparently.
And there’s this dude there called Utnapishtim
and he’s like “Whoa, you got some balls coming over here, son. What’s your name?”
and Gilgamesh is like “I’M GILGAMESH.
MY BEST PAL DIED NOW I WANNA BE IMMORTAL.”
And Utnapishtim is like “That is the most weak-sauce reason anyone has given me to do anything.
But anyway, let me tell you my life story:”
SUMMARY:
UTNAPISHTIM IS NOAH
EXCEPT HE SAVES A LOT MORE HUMANS AND THEN HE GETS TO BE IMMORTAL
THE END.
And after his story, Utnapishtim is like “So, you see I busted my ass for immortality
and frankly I don’t think the gods are down to do that again.
You may want to just take your punk ass back across the waters of death and go die like a man.”
But joke’s on Utnapishtim
because Gilgamesh got so bored of the story that he actually FELL ASLEEP.
But actually, joke’s on Gilgamesh
because Utnapishtim bakes a ton of bread and puts it next to Gilgamesh’s face
so that when he wakes up SEVEN DAYS LATER
he sees all this moldy bread and he is like “Ew, gross.”
But then I guess Utnapishtim feels bad about his prank
so he tells Gilgamesh about this weird immortality plant that grows at the bottom of the ocean
and then obviously Gilgamesh ties rocks to his feet and sinks to the bottom of the ocean
(Again, this does not seem like the behavior of a dude who is trying to not die)
and he gets this plant
but then he stops to take a bath on his way back home and a snake steals the plant
and then eventually Gilgamesh gets old and dies miserable and alone
or maybe content and surrounded by whores.
The epic is not clear on this point.
So basically
Enkidu wouldn’t have died if that chick hadn’t boned him and then made him take a shower
and Gilgamesh would’ve had eternal youth if he hadn’t stopped for a bath
so the moral of the story
is that REAL HEROES NEVER BATHE.
NATIVE AMERICAN
Now the problem with dedicating a section to the whole of Native American mythology
is that there were a lot of people living in this country before we showed up and set it on fire
and some of them didn’t get along too well
and they ALL had their own stories
so trying to tell a cohesive Native American mythology
with only a handful of myths
is a lot like trying to cook an alphabet soup using only the letter “A”
so I highly recommend that you go online
and look up some Native American myths on your own
because there’s a TON of them
and they’re great
but for now
I am going to attempt to give you a small spoonful
of the alphabet soup that this country used to belong to.
WISAKEDJAK IS HIGHLY IRRESPONSIBLE
Now I know I told you there were a thousand and one pantheons to choose from here
but at least as far as creation myths are concerned
all the Native American stories start to sound pretty much the same after a while
so I picked the Algonquin version
because it is the one with the highest concentration of hilarious jerks.
Speaking of hilarious jerks, meet Wisakedjak.
His name is sometimes anglicized as Whiskey Jack
but that’s needlessly confusing
’cause this dude has nothing to do with whiskey
and in fact was around WAYYYY before whiskey
because what kind of creation myth would this be otherwise?
A much drunker one, that’s what kind.
But Wisakedjak is not the kind of dud
e who NEEDS whiskey to get down.
See, he’s a trickster god
who happens to be real tight with the creator.
So basically
the creator makes the world
and then he’s like “Dude, Wisakedjak
I am so tired from making this world and stuff.
How about you handle everything else now.
Like, teach everyone what roots are good to eat
and keep them from killing each other and stuff.
You know, pretty much everything I am actually personally responsible for doing
but like, the not-fun part of it.”
So the creator goes to sleep
and Wisakedjak proceeds to do the exact opposite of everything the creator told him to do
as in, he feeds everyone poison and goes around starting fights.
So then the creator wakes up from like a ten-year nap
and he’s like “Whooooaaaa, dude.
What did I tell you to do?
I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that.
You best clean up your act
Or else I’m gonna kill everybody and then you’ll be bored.”
So Wisakedjak calls bullshit
and just goes right on doing what he was doing
except like NINE TIMES HARDERRRR
he is running up to dudes like “HEY:
HEYYYY:
SEE THAT GUY OVER THERE?
HE KILLED YOUR DOG
HE KILLED YOUR PARENTS
MURDER HIM.
EAT THIS CYANIDE.
GO GO GO.”
And he just keeps doing this
until the earth is literally saturated with blood
there is nowhere for all this blood to go
it’s pretty upsetting
so at this point the creator shows up again like “THAT’S IT.
EVERYBODY DIES.”
So then everything floods, as usual
and the only things left alive
are Wisakedjak
(even though he is almost the entire problem)
plus an otter, a beaver, and a muskrat.
No fish, apparently
which is something I always wonder about in these flood myths.
Like, a flood seems like a really great way to punish every living creature in the world
except for fish.
What the hell is a god supposed to do when all the FISH start being assholes?
Anyway, let’s just sidestep that plothole completely
and cut to Wisakedjak sitting in the water with his animal pals
crying and feeling sorry for himself
when all of a sudden he has an idea.
