Setswana in the very roots of mankind (Part 4)
L M Leteane | Friday September 4, 2015 15:28
In any case, the following African peoples – to mention a few – have Flood stories: the Yuroba, Efik-Ibibo, and Ekoi of Nigeria; the Bakongo, Basonge and Bena-Lula of the DRC, and the Masai, Komililo-Nandi, Kwaya and Kikuyu of East Africa. Some, like that of the Masai, are so close to the biblical story in Genesis 7 that they surely emanate from a common source. Let me briefly recount the Masai Flood-story.
The world was once heavily populated and the people were sinful and did not heed God. However, they refrained from murder until one day Nambija (Cain) hit Suage (Abel) on the head and killed him. At this, God resolved to destroy everyone except a righteous man called Tumbainot (Noah) and his two wives, their six sons, and their wives. They were instructed to build an ark and then fill it up with animals of all sorts. After adequately provisioning the ark, they entered it. God sent a long period of rain and the ark drifted on the flood that ensued. When the rain stopped, Tumbainot sent out a dove but it returned tired so he knew that it had found no land to rest. Several days later, he attached an arrow to the tail feather of a vulture and loosed it. When the vulture returned without the arrow, Tumbainot knew that it must have landed on carrion, which retained the arrow, and that the flood was receding. Soon, the ark landed on a steppe and four rainbows appeared, one in each quarter of the sky, thus symbolising the end of God’s wrath.
As I have shown in many articles, Jews and Africans once shared common space in Egypt – which the Luhya of East Africa called M’sir (mo-siri: buffer/protector) in their legends. That is exactly why the above Flood stories are near-identical. I had also offered incontrovertible proof that Egypt was once indeed known as I-sira-El: “El’s Protector” – a buffer zone to shield off Canaan, where the Elohim (Hebrew for “gods”) kept their all-important shems (me-sha in Bantu syntax: “fiery ones” – meaning “space-rockets”). Indeed, the reason why no archaeological trace of Hebrew patriarchs from Abraham to Jesse was ever found in present-day Israel is because “Israel” was Lower Egypt and “Egypt” meant Upper Egypt! ! The utter importance of these shems had long proven itself when the Elohim avoided the ravages of the all-destroying Flood by blasting off to the relative safety of space in these vessels, leaving behind mankind to perish in the Deluge that followed. Last week, we examined the real, scientific causes of the Flood last, so these will not be repeated here.
What we can add is that as Earth’s tectonic plates shifted violently, whole continents moved into different latitudes. In a sphere, if the outer “skin” glides over the inner core, parts of that skin (crust) will move “upward” while some will move “downward”. Most unfortunate were those animals that were caught up in the “upward” movement that took them from temperate to arctic latitudes in a sudden, terrifying upheaval. Around 10983 BC, woolly mammoths (elephant-like creatures that are now-extinct) were grazing on buttercups when they suddenly found themselves in sub-zero temperatures of the arctic. They died quickly, buttercups still in their mouths (these do not grow in the arctic latitudes, where the mammoths were found). Many other animal species became extinct in this upheaval and geologists mark this period as the end of the Pleistocene epoch and the beginning of our present Holocene epoch.
It looks like the Elohim saved many species of plants and animals by building sanctuaries for them. Someone also helped save mankind – the line of Adam – from extinction by advising Noah’s family to build an ark. Who was it? According to the Old Testament it was God Himself. But the Atra-Hasis says that well before disaster struck, Enlil (Ene-le-Illu, Lord of the Illui/Elohim – who Genesis calls “God”) called up a council of gods and swore them to secrecy. No-one was to forewarn mankind that a cataclysm was imminent as Earth trembled and groaned under tremendous stresses caused by a certain extremity in her cyclical titling. Rather, it was Enki, his half-brother and second-in-command, who advised Noah the Utnapishtim (the Ultra-Wise or atra-hasis) to build a submergible vessel (not a floating ark) to escape the impending calamity. When, millennia later, Genesis was compiled, the compilers switched roles around, making Enlil appear to be the hero and Enki the villain. But Noah’s own name (Noha: “snake” in Sesotho) inadvertently reveals that Enlil later saw him as a wily, slippery “snake” who escaped the Flood, duly advised by Enki the quintessential “snake” himself (see last week’s article).
Clearly, Enlil did not cause the Flood; he merely took advantage of it. As the day crept ever closer, he took pleasure in slyly warning mankind that one day he is going to “punish the entire world for its sins”. No wonder, well after the Flood, Sumerian scribes pointed an accusing finger at him, saying: “They broke the cosmic barrier [i.e. opened up the sky]! The Flood which you mentioned, whose is it? The gods commanded total destruction! Enlil did an evil deed on the people! They commanded [this] in the assembly of the gods, springing a Flood for a later day, [saying] “Let us do the deed!” Another tablet says: e-nu-ma ilanu im-tas-ku mil-ka i-na matati, a-bu-ba is-ku-nu i-na ki-ib-ra-ti! Only Setswana translates this properly – thus: eno ma Illanu (these Elohim), e m’ta (they came [together]) ese ku mela (was it not to foment] ka ina (in there) matati (trouble)? A buba (they wove: bobi is “that which is woven”) i-s’kunu[tu] (a conspiracy) ina (in there): Ki (Earth) e be (to be) rathi! (hit [with catastrophe]). I rest my case.
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