Associative Magic: Some Rituals, Word Plays, and Philology

Abstract

WHEN EGBERT VON WEIHER PUBLISHED, in his new volume of Late Babylonian Texts from Uruk, an edition of an important new text of Ritual Tablet of series brt rimkil' he noted a word play in column II.2 In an elaborate passage where king, main actor of ritual, addresses several parts of body of a slaughtered bird, asking for removal of his sins and wrongdoings, he turns intestines, qerbii, with words: lzi qurbzinimma ikrib sulmi u baldti, may prayers of well-being and life be close me! Quite clearly, there are two associations intended here, first between noun qerbyi 'intestines' and verb qeribu 'to approach', two etymologically related words, which have developed quite separate semantic ranges; secondly, word ikribu 'prayer', from verbal root *krb, is introduced because of its very similar consonantal framework, where only emphatic guttural /q/ is replaced by voiceless / k/. Von Weiher stopped here just short of recognizing similar, though perhaps not quite as obvious, associations in some of passages surrounding three lines cited. Unfortunately, text of structurally parallel paragraphs immediately preceding section quoted above is partly broken, so that for time being no absolutely certain example can be drawn from there. However, there are a number of indications which seem me make it very probable that quite similar allusions are intended there as well, that is, between realia involved and words spoken by king. I think it is more than a coincidence that, for example, a line which is in all probability addressed bird as a whole, issuiru, speaks of curse (izziru) in mouth of numerous people,3 and that line, addressed body of bird, zumru, is spoken remove anger of population from king's body, once again zumru. Furthermore, in this same line a rare expression for anger be warded off is used, sulumit panT, literally the blacknesses of face. This term not only also starts with a syllable containing a sibilant plus /ul, and thus yields something close a 'Stabreim' or syllabic alliteration with zumru, but choice of words also suggests me, at least possibility that body of bird, which was probably described in hopelessly broken preceding section of text, was supposed have black spots, sulmi. The next paragraph, dealing with colon (Akkadian Kammdhu, or erru kabru)5 aims at removal of another negative quality from king; unfortunately, word for this is badly broken in our text. What is preserved are two verbs desribing this removal, nasdhu and tabdku, to pull out and throw into a heap-surely an allusion what was usually done with colon, as a rather worthless part of slaughtered animal. In trying restore broken word I had hoped find something reminiscent of one of words for 'colon', but I have admit that traces in cuneiform copy do not seem support this idea. Proceeding from here three much better preserved sections following our first example, we encounter still another pattern of associative wording; first two paragraphs do not, however, use word play in strict sense but rather another technique well known in sympathetic magic, which makes use of a kTma comparison. For possibly most famous examples of this, I refer here tablet '5-6' of series Surpu, with its long sequence of spells which aim at destruction of evil force using magical comparisons peeling of an onion, stripping of a cluster of * Paper read at 1984 Annual Meeting of American Oriental Society in Seattle, Wash. I delayed publication while still hoping be able pursue subject in more detail; this, however, has not been possible. I thus offer here original version, extended only by addition of necessary references.