Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

CHAPTER XXXIVTHE LEGENDS OF ADAPA, AND OF THE FLOODEa (originally the primal deity of the Sumerian city of Eriduand eventually the god of the waters on and beneath the Earth)formed with Ann, the god of Heaven, and Enlil, the god ofthe Earth, from the earliest period the great triad at the head ofthe Babylonian pantheon. The representation of Ea took theform of a sea-monster with a body of a big fish, full of stars,and claws for the base of his feet JEa is ordinarily known from the pretty legend wovenround his mortal son Adapa, and the command in obedienceto which Adapa firmly but unconsciously made refusalof thegift of immortality.The latter, to supply his father's household, went a-fishingin the sea one day—fish food was evidently not the " abomination" to the Sumerian that it was to the Egyptian gods—butsuddenly Shiitu the South Wind came on to blow, upset hissailing boat, and ducked him under the water, or, as Adapaputs it," made me descend to the house of my lord," i.e.Ea, god of the Sea. 2 In anger Adapa caught the South Windand broke her wings. ^ But for this assault he was haled to^ Cf. Langdon, op. cit., 72. Ea or " Enki est generalement represente sousla forme d'un animal ayant la tSte, le ecu, et les epaules d'un belier, et quirampe sur les pattes de devant : le reste du corps est celui d'un poisson."^ See the Nippur Poem, op. cit., p. 84, note 3.' From Karl Frank, Babylonische Beschwdrtunge Reliefs, p. 80. The SouthWind was specially dreaded, because it caused destructive floods in the lowlyingregions of the Euphrates valley. In Langdon's Sumerian Epic of Paradise{op. cit., 1915), p. 4 1 we find that " Adapa sailed to catch fish, the trade of Eridu, '^,a pretty and simple touch identifying the god with his worshippers, and hispursuit with their trade ; and one which supports the theory that to theBabylonian his god, in early times, was a being very similar to himself, if morepowerful.369