Chapter 7 - Lions and Grooms
The wild Eden. SW Asia.
‘Father, are there no lions present here on the steppe?’
This isn't the wildwoods of my own world, but that world of dust and sun in the far away east. Arrapu, the sanga of Nammu is here with us. He breaks his anxious stare across a desert horizon, to scan along the belt of grassy steppe he visits with his daughter Ittidu and the goatherd. They’ve brought these beasts to forage upon the wild vegetation here. The nanny goats browse greedily on the prickly foliage of small archipelagos of stunted trees and scrub, which punctuate a sea of drought hardy grasses. Arrapu’s loyal dog, named Sin, zealously patrols them.
No news has reached Arrapu from Engur. He hopes his angry words triggered an insurrection of priests against the tyrant Uguli, maybe I retain a few friends among the orders of E-engur? Maybe so? Alternatively the wheels of this new class of bureaucracy, led by an accountant, turns slowly, and punishment is yet to arrive? These concerns repetitively plague his thoughts.
Ittidu interrupts them, ‘Father. Please. Did you not hear my concern? When can we leave this wild and dangerous place?’
This time, he snaps out of his troubles to stare into his daughter’s lovely almond shaped hazel eyes. So beautiful and rare. The eyes of her late mother. He sees her hands tremble, as they clutch at the string of clay beads around her neck. The clumsy turban of flax she wraps her long black hair in doesn’t diminish her beauty. Nor her long sheepskin dress, a simple twine hugs its lazy folds to his daughter’s slim waist to emphasise her graceful femininity. Utu’s rays have tanned her otherwise fair skin, but she’s still beautiful.
Arrapu clears his throat of dust, in preparation to answer,
‘Lions you ask? Sweet child, even if they are here today, you've no need of fret. Lions wouldn't be interested in a gristly old spirit talker, nor in his bony thin daughter. Nammu protects us’.
Ittidu stares at her father with disbelief. She doesn’t even rise to his taunt.
Arrapu tries to calm her fears,
‘If there were lions here, they’d be lazing asleep, shading from the sun. Their bellies, stuffed with gazelle. Sin would otherwise sense any danger, before running to distract as we slip a hasty retreat back towards Nammu’s gardens’.
His daughter may be of nervous disposition, but she isn't a fool. Ittidu doesn’t believe Sin capable of fending off a pride of lions. Again she catches her father’s empty gaze returning to the desert horizon. She knows his mind is troubled. Time after time he sinks into some deep concern he’s unwilling to share with her. Each time she probes, he fakes a smile and changes subject. So concerned has Ittidu been, she has attempted to raise the issue with Aunt Hulla. The neighbour suggested to Ittidu,
‘Best not to worry yourself Sweet child. A man of your father’s age often withdraws into solitude of thought’.
Ittidu surveys the goatherd, and offers a fresh observation to her troubled father,
‘Your thoughts consume you Father. You don’t even notice your loyal hound has failed his duties’. She giggles when Arrapu returns his attention to his caprine charges. The temple herd munch upon the green foliage of the nearest scrub. Some nannies lay exhausted in shade, their stomachs bloated with fermenting gas. But one pair of the scruffy brown beasts have strayed away to trot over to the promise of bushy greenness in the distance. Meanwhile, a sandy coloured hound descended from local pariah dogs, lays asleep under the shade of a leafy tamarisk.
Arrapu snaps to attention, waves his shepherd’s crook into the direction of two naughty nannies, whistling loudly. Sin leaps up to his paws and charges off after the errant rogues. As his paw pads kick up dust, Ittidu’s giggles turn to rapturous laughter. Together father and daughter chuckle as Sin skilfully corrals then returns the pair of runaways. With a genuine smile on his wizened face, Arrapu strains his neck to ascertain Utu’s position in the sky. He concludes the time approaches when they must return to their marsh edge commune. A fact reinforced by another bloated goat collapsing into the dust. These beasts need to be exercised.
Arrapu smiles at his lovely daughter, ‘Now would be a favourable time to vacate this wild place and to return to our gardens of Eden’.
He spots the joy of relief as it flashes across Ittidu’s features. Quickly she conceals it behind a mask of faked indifference.
A rural priest and his graceful daughter drive livestock back down an arid trail which soon crosses the fruitful irrigated gardens of floodplain barbarians. Dust kicks up as clouds in the wake of many cloven feet. Sin zips up and down each edge to keep order among goats. Father and daughter walk behind, ushering the smelly mass forward. Occasional noises of escaping gas bring fresh giggles from Ittidu. The goats sense nearby drinking water at a drive side pond, many of which dot this fertile landscape. The goatherd picks up pace leaving two human drivers free for conversation. Gently, Arrapu strides using his crook as a walking stick. He says,
‘Sweet child, soon you will wed Dugala of Babba, and leave Nammu’s commune. The Mother’s willing, you'll soon bear children. You need not fear this passage of Life, not to be afraid of new responsibilities. I’ve chosen a prosperous family of Babba for you to be wed into’.
Dishonestly, Ittidu hides from Arrapu, her feelings on this marriage and responds only in words she hopes will please him,
‘Dear Father, this I know well. It is true, and I shall not be a disappointment to you’.
Both father and daughter hide the truth from one another. This they do as some sort of protection of the other. Dugala is a conceited, spoiled brat of a mean family. Silly Sweet child. I’m sure if her father was aware of her feelings, he’d cancel the marriage. Ittidu foolishly puts her father’s reputation ahead of her own happiness.
The two of them catch up with charges wallowing in the muds of floodwaters. Imprints of cloven feet are stomped along the pond margins. Enki’s beards dip to lap away thirst. Father and daughter come to a halt, and Arrapu leans onto his crook before he imparts more wisdom with Ittidu,
‘I have memories about your mother and yourself that I wish to share. Ittidu, you were so young when your dear mother passed. Deprived of knowing her’.
Ittidu cannot recall her mother’s face. Aunt Hulla has assured her,
‘Sweet child, all you need to do is to gaze upon your own reflection in Nammu’s sweet waters, and Sidura will be found staring back at you’. o few actual memories for genuine grief. Ittidu thinks she can just remember the shadow of a mother next to her nursery cot. The warmth of a bosom. A soft touch.
I can tell you these are the experiences of Sidura’s spirit. It's her mother’s ongoing presence who is the source of these supposed memories.
Ittidu senses not all is well with her father. She focuses on him, and sees pain in his eyes. Arrapu catches her concern, and glances away, pretending to watch goats. He proceeds with his revelation,
‘When you were a small child, often you’d be found playing in the company of an invisible friend who only you could see and hear’.
Yes, she remembers these childish games well. Now she thinks of them as youthful fantasies, but at the time, her friend seemed real to her.
Arrapu carries on, ‘Aunt Hulla came to me worried with tales of demonic infestation. As a spirit-talker I could calm her fears. I saw nothing demonic about your visitations. They consoled a little girl who’d lost her mother’. He stops pretending to stare at goats, and turns to attend his daughter, ‘Your mother’s folk were from the cedar mountains beyond the desert. Sidura retained her ancestors' belief in a moon goddess locked into battle with a divine bull’.
It pleases Ittidu to hear her father talk about her mother, bringing a smile to her face and she listens tentatively as her father shares,
‘One full moon I awoke to find your cot empty. I panicked that a leopard had snatched you. I searched the house and the reed temple, but I couldn't find you’. He pauses, to reflect before he continues, ‘I found you standing outside on Nammu’s island. You stood alone under the light of the Moon, gazing upwards whilst talking gibberish. I sensed a spiritual presence with my little girl. I didn’t fear for I knew it to be benign. Rather, I scooped you into my arms, and enquired “Ittidu, who are you talking with? Why are you out here and not in your nursery cot?”
A pause before he can find the right words, ‘You answered sweetly “Daddy, it was a white bull who’d woken me, and it was the bull who carried me outside to talk to the Moon Lady”. You told me this Moon Lady had brought to you a sister, invisible to others’.
Although Ittidu does recall this ‘sister’, a dark-skinned wild girl of her own age, she doesn’t remember the events of the night Arrapu describes. He has more to reveal,
‘Sweet child, that benign familiarity I sensed with yourself on Nammu’s island. It was that of your mother. I could smell Sidura on you as I lifted you up. I believe she was still caring, and your spiritual sister had been delivered to you by your mother’.
Tears spill from his eyes. Ittidu reaches out and holds her father. When his resolve returns he shares a prophecy,
‘Sweet child, there will be times when you'll lack the support of myself or Dugala. When this happens, you can call upon the protection of the Moon. Seek out Nanna where he kisses his mother - in this world you may find that wherever the moon reflects from waters, by they of sweet or salty nature. There, you'll find fortitude, for Ittidu, you're a daughter of the Moon’.
With his counsel fully revealed to Ittidu, Arrapu summons Sin to return the goatherd back to the drive.
Nammu
Long shadows stretch ahead when they arrive back at the sheep-pounds on the edges of Nammu’s commune. It's almost sunset when they corral the goats into a milking yard. Arrapu tasks his daughter,
‘I’ll call on our cousins to assist with the milking. Before all light is lost, can you return home, and prepare a meal for us both?’
Ittidu is glad to accept this task. She strides out of the enclosures, and up the dusty trail serving as the dry side of Nammu’s commune. Here, the mud and reed walled hovels of the herders and agrarian farmers stand. The alluvial soils of Eden are remarkably rich, enabling these folk to settle in permanent even ancient villages.
Ittidu reaches the ramp of a flood bank. She climbs up, and across a rope footbridge crossing over an irrigation channel. The dry dust beneath her feet is now replaced by a causeway of reed matting. Ittidu has reached the wet-side of the commune. The causeway passes across the marshes. More rope bridges sprout away from the causeway of laid down reed. These connect to the floating reed-houses of the fisherfolk. Fishnets, traps, and the bodies of freshly killed waterfowl, decorate their frontages. Ittidu passes by each one, as tall, uncut reeds rooted into the marsh below, stroke her ankles.
Ultimately the causeway stretches to reach a simple wharf on the banks of the holy river. Ittidu has no intent to visit the riverside today. Her own destination lies part way along the causeway, on Nammu’s island. Legend dictates this little isle-in-a-marsh was created when Nammu scooped out the earths of Abzu’s lagoon, to dump them here as an island. Whatever its origins, this little isle in a sea of flooded marshland, supports the temple of Nammu. The tall arches of this wonderful Al mudhif ceremonial house have been raised using long, cone shaped thick bundles of cut reed.
Ittidu steps away from the causeway onto the island. With the radiance of a burning star her shadow falls across the reed walls of Nammu’s temple. Their house, and those of a few others of the commune, stands behind the temple, home she thinks. Security from both lions and grooms.