Enki�s journey to Nibiru: the inciting layer
L M Leteane | Friday October 7, 2016 16:14
Scribes did this by being economical with vowels , which enabled a reader clued into their vernacular to insert his own vowel ‘fillers’ that always led to other intended layers of meaning. The superficial layers were evidently meant to be understood by the ‘gods’ (me-en) and were palatable to them, while the subtler layers were invariably irreverent to them. ‘Gods’, I explained, were real, flesh-and-blood beings of highly advanced technology even in antiquity, not mere figments of primitive and fearful imagination.
We have thus far utterly dismissed the conventional translation for the few lines I extracted: they harp on about ‘sacred architecture’ created and decorated for ‘Lord Nudimmud’ “…[whose] brickwork makes utterances and gives advice”. This, obviously, is off-topic and has nothing to do with the correctly discerned title of the epic. Instead, we relied on Sotho-Tswana – perhaps the closest living relative of Sumerian – to not only aid us in proper understanding, but in peeling off the various layers of meaning.
After properly transliterating Sumerian, we clearly articulated a story in which a ‘Dark One’ (a black person) was relating how excited he was at blasting off from the ‘Abzu’ (Ha-ba-Tsho: ‘Place of the Black People’) and riding the ‘m’doga-doga (space-rocket) of the Igigi (astronaut-giants)’. Last week we unpacked another layer in which the scribe was challenging or inciting his fellow Dark Ones to rise to the level of gods and even build their own m’doga-doga as it was something not only the gods can attain. In the last line of our extract, he lambasts the idea of being mere playthings of the gods. This week we unpack the last, most irreverent layer of the epic – one the ‘gods’ were never meant to perceive.
A now well-known side-effect of spending long periods in the weightlessness of space is that the astronaut grows by about two inches (5 cm) for very four weeks spent there. Ironically for ‘orthodoxy-minded’ naysayers, this explains why the Igigi (bo-dimo in Setswana, ‘Watchers’ in Hebrew lore) were associated not only with the heavens (dimo means ‘high up’ in Setswana), but with a giant stature. For a ‘Dark One’, however, the problem was that on coming back a giant, he was abandoned to be shunned by women while the gods took care of their own, namely the Igigi astronauts. If Igigi were not too big, black women, it seems, were ‘sacrificed’ to them. The embittered, sex-starved Black Giant had this to say about it (Line Nine): suh kug galam dug-ga abzu-ta ed-a (“Suhu ko go kalama a thuga A-ba-tsho; e ta e ja”), which translates as: “Under cover of night is when they mount and pound black people; they eat from time to time” ‘Eat’ here, is a vulgar term – still used in Setswana –meaning ‘have sex with’.
Line Ten: en nu-dim-mud-ramu-un-na-suga-su-ge-ec (“Eno, di mo je, rra, monna a suga-sugeke: This one (the black woman), they (the gods) eat her; men find solace (literally: are caressed).”). Line Eleven: e kug-ga i-ni-in-du na za-gin-na i-ni-in-gun (“E kuge ga i-nini, intu ene a sa kene; nna e nini gono? It (a god) wakes up at the woman’s, a black man though not being allowed therein; is this creature really a nini (woman)?”) Although nini (literally: ‘small one’) means ‘woman’, the scribe is also subtly insulting her double standards, rhetorically asking if she is still ‘small’ after her experience with the giants.
Line Twelve: gal-le-ec kug-sig-ga cu tag ba-ni-in-dug (“Ga le ko koga ‘sigo, a ga a kota-ka banini-ntu, ga? When he leaves you at night, has he not mounted black females?”) Here the scribe is challenging the women who deny them favours, saying that an Igigi god cannot be seen leaving her residence and yet has done nothing. An even ruder level is: “Ha le heka, ko go sia ga go ta ga banni-ini’ndoga: when he makes love [though], you wish you could run away at the speed they fly their rockets” – alluding to pain and discomfort. Line Thirteen: eridugki-ga egu-a bi-in-du (“He re toga Ki, ga e kgoa, a be intu: after leaving Earth, he was no longer an ordinary white person, he became a god” – alluding to massive increase in size. (Ntu is ‘god’, but the scribe also uses vernacular of intu as ‘mortal’, and ‘god’ as kgoa.) On a ruder level: “E re e thuga, ke ga e goa, a be intu: when he (a god) pounds, he cries out just like an ordinary person”…but is also referring to the woman; that when she is pounded and cries out in pain, she forgets her ‘demi-god’ status and betrays her bo-ntu. Line Fourteen: sig-bi inim dug-dug ad gi-gi (se jewe; e be, ena, m’thuga-thuga ‘a di Igigi: She is eaten, thus becoming a pounding pestle of the Igigi”.) The scribe, bitter with being a sex-starved giant, is here taking out his bitterness not only on ‘Abzu’ women but the gods who took him on a journey to N’ibiru and back.
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