Specific Demonic Features

For most demons it is difficult to define specific and fixed features and behav­iour. Some of them lose their main identities when they are depicted as part of a group, as in the case of the Seven, the Galla, and the Utukku.

The above mentioned Old Babylonian incantation against Lamastu^[171] offers a detailed narrative description of the demon's attack. The Lamastu enters the house slipping through the door socket and, once she has targeted her victim, a child in this case, she seizes his abdomen. Another incantation highlights Lamastu's connection with the risks of childbirth^^[172]

She is fierce, she is quicki'?'"), she is...

She is roaming around the little-ones...

Although she is not a physician, she bandages [the umbilical cord(?)] Although she is not a midwife, she wipes off the new-born, She keeps counting the months of the pregnant women, She is blocking regularly the gate of the woman who is giving birth. She keeps accompanying the stride of the livestock.

She is examining the land in a demon's rage:

She takes hold of the young man in the street,

Of the young woman in the dance,

Of the little-one on the shoulder of the nurse^[173]

In later compositions, narrative descriptions of demons are scantier. The col­lection Utukku lemnutu (uh) contains some that mainly describe the two main groups of the evil utukkus and the Seven. In these groups, the features of each being dissolve in those of the group and, in fact, the only large section devoted to a single demon concerns the Alu:

Whether you be evil, whether you be evil,

Whether you are the evil Alu-demon,

Whether you are the evil Alu-demon who is like a wall that caves in and collapses upon the man,

Whether you are the evil Alu-demon who muzzles the mouth and binds the hand and foot;

Or whether you are the evil Alu-demon who has no mouth,

Whether you are the evil Alu-demon who has no limbs,

Whether you are the evil Alu-demon who does not listen,

Whether you are the evil Alu-demon who has no face,

Whether you are the evil Alu-demon who is not seen (even) by daylight;

Or whether you are the evil Alu-demon who, in bed at night, copulates with a man in his sleep,

Whether you are the evil Alu-demon, ‘sleep-snatcher,’ who stands ready to carry off a victim,

Whether you are the evil Alu-demon who is a god stalking at night, who does not wash (his) filthy hands;

Whether you are the evil Alu-demon who urinates like an ass while crouching over a man;

Or whether you are the evil Alu-demon who knows no oblation nor has any meal offering,

Or whether you are the evil Alu-demon of a man who is ‘sailed’ (ridden) like a ship,

Or whether you are the evil Alu-demon of a man who lies recumbent like a bed,

Whether you are the evil Alu-demon who caused a man to wander like a bad dream;

Or whether you are the evil Alu-demon who always flies about like a bat in the clefts at night,

Whether you are the evil Alu-demon who always flies around at night like a bird in the dark,

Or whether you are the evil Alu-demon who covers the victim like a gill net,

Whether you are the evil Alu-demon who snares the victim like a hunting-net,

Or whether you are the evil Alu-demon who has no vision, as if at night, Whether you are the evil Alu-demon who prowls about quietly at night like an urban fox

(uh viii, 1-23)^[174]

This long and detailed description only serves to reveal the relevance of the Alu demon as an important figure in the Babylonian pandemonium, because most of the features used to describe its actions are not exclusive to the Alu, but common to the other demons.

More detailed is the description of Asag/Asakku in the bilingual mythologi­cal introduction to the so-called Incantation of the piglet4

Incantation: evil asag, who rises like the flood,

He is clad in splendour, he fills the vast earth,

Covered by awe-inspiring aura, endowed with awesomeness.

He roams in the streets, infiltrates the alleys,

He places himself at the side of the man, but no one can see him,

He stays at the side of the man, but no one [...].

When he enters the house, his mark can't be recognised, When he comes out from the house, he is not noticed, Like a wave is removed, like a wave is posed.

Like in front of a sweeping dust storm that no one can resist,

He don't retreat, he sheds blood like drizzle,

He constantly cause deaths of livestock.

The living beings, as many as they have a name and are in the country, from East to West They are in his power.

A man, without his god, [...]

He has ensnared this man and then confused his mind,

He has smitten his head and [...] his skull,

He has smitten his face and he make him drop his gaze,

The evil disease stays in his limbs,

Hardship [...].

However, these late descriptions are exceptional. In the first millennium, incantations are redacted and collected in large series. Most demons, treated or gathered together in large groups, lose their specific features and dissolve in a homogenisation favoured by the formulaic language of these composi­tions. Despite this process of indeterminacy, traits of individuality for some demons may emerge from the descriptions of their attacks. For some of them, in fact, specific features, which are often reduced to a single adjective or epi­thet, reveal the original nature and imagery of this demon. This is again the case of the Alu demon, whose attack is usually described as a dress covering or enveloping (Akk. katamu) the victim's body. ^[175]