Egypt Exploration Society
The "Cannibal Hymn" from the Pyramid Texts Author(s): R. O. Faulkner Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Jul., 1924), pp. 97-103 Published by: Egypt Exploration Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3854235 . Accessed: 09/03/2012 06:54 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
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THE "CANNIBAL HYMN" FROM THE PYRAMID TEXTS BY R. O. FAULKNER Pyramid Texts contain a mass of information with regard to early Egyptian religion and society the value of which cannot be fully appraised until they have been much more deeply studied. While much that is in them is still totally obscure there are however portions the bearing of which cannot be mistaken. Among these one of the most interesting is the so-called Cannibal Hymn, which is found in the pyramids of Wenis and Tety. The following translation is based on the text published by SETHE,Die Altaegyptischen THE
Pyramidentexte,Spriiche 273-4, =? 393-414. The previous translations of Masperol, Breasted2, and Erman3, which have provided many valuable suggestions, are referred to in the commentary under the names of their authors. The paragraph numbering is that of Sethe. TRANSLATION.
393a. The sky pours water, the stars darken (?), 393b. The Bows rush about, the bones of the Earth-gods tremble,
393c. They are still (?), the Pleiades(?) 394a. 394b. 394c. 395a. 395b. 396a. 396b. 396c. 396d. 397a. 397b. 397c. 398a. 398b. 398c. 399a. 399b.
When they see Wenis4 appearing, animated, As a god who lives on his fathers and feeds on his mothers. Wenis is the Lord of Wisdom, whose mother knows not his name, The glory of Wenis is in the sky, his power is in the horizon Like Atum his father who begat him; when he begat Wenis, he (Wenis) was mightier than he. The kas of Wenis are about him, his attributes are under his feet; His gods are upon him, his uraei are on his brow, The guiding-serpent of Wenis is on his forehead, and (his) soul beholds the serpent of flame, The powers of Wenis protect him. Wenis is the bull of the sky, who conquers (?) according to his desire, who lives on the being of every god, Who eats their entrails (?), who comes when their belly is filled with magic From the Island of Fire. Wenis is equipped, his spirits are united, Wenis appears as this Great One, Lord of (divine) helpers, He sits (with) his back to Geb, It is Wenis who judges with him whose name is hidden (In) this day of slaying the Oldest One.
1 Rec. de Trav., Iv, 59-61. 2 Developmentof Religion and Thoughtin Ancient Egypt, 127-9. 4 Or, of course Tety in the text of T. Die Literatur der Aegypter,30-2.
3
98 399c. 399d. 400a. 400b. 401a. 401b. 401c. 402a. 402b. 402c. 403a. 403b. 403c. 404a. 404b. 404c. 404d. 405a. 405b. 406a. 406b. 406c. 407a. 407b. 407c. 407d. 408a. 408b. 408c. 409a. 409b. 409c. 410a. 410b. 410c. 411a. 411b. 411c. 411d. 412a. 412b.
R. O. FAULKNER Wenis is the Lord of Food-offerings, who knots the cord, Who himself prepares his meal. It is Wenis who eats men and lives on gods, Lord of porters, who despatches messages. It is "Grasper-of-Horns" who is in KhRwwho lassoes them for Wenis, It is the serpent "He-whose-head-is-raised " who watches them for him and who drives them to him, It is " He-who-is-upon-the-Willows " who binds them for him, It is " The-Wanderer-who-slaughters-the-Lords " who strangles them for Wenis, He cuts out their intestines for him, He is the messenger whom he sends to punish; It is " He-of-the-Winepress " who cuts them up for Wenis, Cooking for him a portion of them in his evening cooking-pots. It is Wenis who eats their magic and swallows their spirits; Their great ones are for his morning portion, Their middle-sized ones are for his evening. portion, Their little ones are for his night portion, Their old men and old women are for his incense-burning. It is the Great Ones who are in the north of the sky who place for him the fire To the kettles containing them with the thighs of their oldest ones. Those who are in the sky serve Wenis, The cooking-pots are wiped out for him with the legs of their women. He has gone around the two complete skies, he has encircled the two regions, Wenis is the Great Mighty One who has power over the mighty ones, Wenis is the figure of a god who endows with divinity (?) the great figures of the gods. Him whom he finds in his way, him he devours for himself quite raw, The protection of Wenis is before all the noble ones who are in the horizon. Wenis is a god, older than the oldest, Thousands serve him, hundreds offer to him, A warrant-of-appointment as " Great Mighty One " is given to him by Orion, Father of the Gods. Wenis has reappeared in the sky, he is crowned as Lord of the Horizon, He has smashed the vertebrae and the spinal marrows, He has taken the hearts of the gods, He has eaten the Red Crown, he has swallowed the Green One, Wenis feeds on the lungs of the Wise Ones, He is satisfied by living on hearts and their magic. Wenis rejoices (?) that he devours the sbiw which are in the Red Crown; Wenis flourishes, their magic is in his belly, The dignities of Wenis are not taken from him, He has swallowed the intelligence of every god. The lifetime of Wenis is eternity, his limit is everlastingness, In this his dignity of "If he wishes, he does, If he wishes not, he does not,"
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412c. Who is within the boundary of the horizon for ever and ever. 413a. Lo, their soul is in the belly of Wenis, their spirits are with Wenis, 413b. His surplus of food is more than (that of) the gods, being cooked for Wenis with their bones; 413c. Lo, their soul is with Wenis, their shadows are with their companions. 414a. Wenis is with this which appears, which appears, which hides, which hides; 414b, The doers of (evil) deeds have not power over the hacking up (of the earth (?)), 414c. The favourite place of Wenis is with those who live in this earth for ever and ever. COMMENTARY.
393a. Gp (W); lgp (T). Erman, "bewolkt sich," from Coptic 'une; Breasted's "pour water" is probably the more correct, not only on account of the det. of rain, which occurs in both texts, but also on account of the connection of this word with }gb " flood." wL 'Ihl. Erman "regnen (?),"Breasted "rain down," connecting this word with W hi{ "to rain," while Maspero (" se battent ") apparently connects it with hw4 "to strike." In T, however, it has the det. of night, which suggests that the real meaning is " to darken," the natural result of the sky " pouring water." 393c. Grr.~n gnmw. Breasted, " the porters (?) are silent," presumably from gr (2 lit.) "to be silent, to be still." But why then the doubled r ? Was gr originally a 3ae inf. ? The meaning "to be still" properly refers to absence of sound only, but it might easily be transferred to absence of motion, as seems to be the case here, since in T gnmwvhas the det. of motion. Gnmw. Breasted, "porters (?)," but the usual word for "porters" is lnw (cf. ? 400b). It seems rather to be connected with the Coptic nIMOvT "the Pleiades," which would fit the context exactly. The change from masc. to fem. might be due to the word being later treated as a collective. 396c. Ptrt b? }ht nt b. Obscure. Ptrt is apparently the 6dmtf-form, used in place of sdm.f, as known from Sinuhe and elsewhere. B?, if it refers to the soul of the king, lacks the personal suffix. }ht is here a name for the serpent on the royal diadem. Nt is possibly an early writing for nt. 397a. Nhd, probably a niph'al formation of hd " to push, to attack." 399c. An allusion to the ceremonial lassoing of the sacrificial animal. Cf. the scene from Abydos figured in CAPART,Le Temple de Seti ler, P1. XLVIII. 400b. Hlc. Breasted, "to despatch." The word is not otherwise known in this sense, which might however be derived quite easily from the more common meaning "to throw." Erman's "erteilen " does not take sufficient account of the fact that heCis a verb of motion. 401a. 'Ihmc wpwt. Erman, " Scheitelfasser "; Breasted " Grasper of Forelocks." Sethe translates "Gehorne" (Zeitschr. f ag. Spr., 45, 48). Probably "Grasper of Horns" is the more exact translation, since it maintains the imagery of hunting the victims like cattle. 401b. For d6r="to raise" see Ember in Zeitschr. f. dg. Spr., 51, 120 and n. 4. The allusion is to the characteristic attitude of the cobra about to strike. 406b. Sgr is probably the same word as 6?r by metathesis of ? and s, and this itself is a variant of Ahr,which occurs in Ebers, 97, 17 with the meaning " to sweep out, to clean out." Here it would refer to the cleaning of the cooking-pots after use. 407b. This is a jingle like 407a, where the keyword was ghm. The substantive csm (later chm) means "figure of a god "; thus the second CSm here must be the participle of a
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transitive verb meaning "to make into a divine figure," "to endow with divinity" or the like. 407c. Mwmw occurs three times in the Pyr., each time in an identical context, i.e. in
??278a, 407c, and 444e. In ? 444e T has the variant usual
F
A.
n
instead of the more
According to Ember (Zeitschr. f. dg. Spr., 51, 116 and n. 3, quoting
Sethe) the meaning of mw is "raw," the reduplicated mwmw meaning " entirely raw." 411c. The writing of the negative in T ) shows that we have here the emphatic negative and the verb hm4,not the simple negative and the verb nhm. IHm usually means "to drive away," but here the sense is certainly "to take away," being in this case synonymous with nhm. Possibly this last is a niph'al formation from hml, with loss of the weak final radical. The form here employed is the sdmw.f passive, the doubled radical being perhaps due to a desire to avoid the use of the weak consonant w. THE LITERARYASPECT.
The poetic form employed by this hymn is the oldest of all styles of poetry, the "parallelism of members," familiar to everyone in the Hebrew Psalms. While our ignorance of the vocalisation prevents us from restoring the sound and rhythm of the original, the parallelism is clearly distinguishable, both in the grammatical construction and in the thought to which it gives expression. For example, the following lines are parallel in 4 Iw " to be ": structure, and all begin with the verb "Are Are Are Are
the 'kas' of Wenis about him, his attributes under his feet; his gods upon him, his uraei on his brow."
The passages which describe the butchering and cutting up of the victims show this parallelism in a more marked degree, being constructed on the general plan " It is X who does so-and-so for Wenis": "It is 'Grasper-of-Horns' who is in KhAwwho lassoes them for Wenis; It is 'He-whose-head-is-raised' who watches them for him and drives them to him; It is' He-who-is-upon-the-willows' who binds them for him." In ??409a-410a is a series of short lines which describe the actions of the Pharaoh in the terms " he has done so-and-so ": "Wenis has reappeared in the sky, he is crowned as Lord of the Horizon, He has smashed the vertebrae and the spinal marrows, He has taken the hearts of the gods, He has eaten the Red Crown, He has swallowed the Green One." The parallelisms of this hymn, of which the above quotations are typical examples, are however in a comparatively advanced stage of development, and are less obvious in the English translation than some of the cruder forms, which depend to a large extent upon actual repetition. It is possible from the hymns in the Pyramid Texts to trace the gradual
THE "CANNIBAL HYMN" FROM THE PYRAMID TEXTS 101 growth of this poetic form from the merest repetition to a developed literary style. Perhaps the most primitive of all is the following extract from Pyr. Spruch 222: "He He He He He He He He He He He He
has come to thee lis father, has come to thee, O Re. has come to thee his father, has come to thee, O Ndl. has come to thee his father, has come to thee, 0 Pndn. has come to thee his father, has come to thee, O Dndn. has come to thee his father, has come to thee, O Great Bull (sm? wr). has come to thee his father, has come to thee, O Great Embracer (shn wr)."
In this extract, simple in structure though it is, there is clear evidence of literary artifice. Further, there seems to be an attempt at rhyma. Of the last four couplets, the first two end on the same syllable, d-n, and the last two end on w-r, while the lines appear to scan. The next stage in the development is the limiting of the repetition to the opening phrase of each line or stanza. This is the form of parallelism which occurs most frequently in Egyptian hymns, whether of Pyramid Age or later. A good example of this form from the Pyramid Texts is the " Hymn to the Crown " from Spruch 221: "Hail, Crown Nt! Hail, Crown 'In ! Hail, Great Crown! Hail, mighty of magic! Hail, Serpent! Cause thou the terror of Wenis to be like thy terror; Cause thou the fear of Wenis to be like the fear of thee; Cause thou the cry(?) of Wenis to be like thy cry(?); Cause thou the love of Wenis to be like the love of thee; Cause thou that his sceptre be at the head of the living; Cause thou that his staff be at the head of the spirits, Cause thou that his sword prevail against his enemies." Another poetic construction based on the same principle is the constantly recurring refrain, as in this passage from Spruch 266: "The reed rafts of the sky are placed for R6C; I, Re6, cross on them to the horizon with Horus of the Horizon. The reed rafts of the sky are placed for this Pepi; He crosses on them to the horizon with Horus of the Horizon. The reed rafts of the sky are placed for Horus of the Horizon; Horus of the Horizon crosses on them to the horizon with Rec. The reed rafts of the sky are placed for this Pepi; This Pepi crosses on them to the horizon with Re?." The third stage is best illustrated by the quotations which have been made from the Cannibal Hymn itself, where the actual repetition is confined to the initial word, the parallelism being maintained by similarity of idea and by the grammatical structure. Finally, in Spruch 269 there is a hymn, intended for use in the ritual of burning
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incense, which is more complicated in design. It consists of a series of couplets, each complete in itself. The rule of parallelism is maintained by making the two lines of each couplet begin with the same word, but a new element is introduced by making the second line reciprocate the sense of the first: "The fire is laid, the fire shines; The incense is laid on the fire, the incense shines. Thy perfume comes to Wenis, O incense; The perfume of Wenis comes to thee, O incense. Your perfume comes to Wenis, O gods; The perfume of Wenis comes to you, 0 gods. Wenis is with you, O gods; Ye are with Wenis, O gods. Wenis loves you, O gods; Love him, O gods." This last quotation shows a great advance in poetic construction on the mechanical repetition of Spruch 222, and it probably represents the best of which the Egyptian of the Pyramid Age was capable in this department of literature. THE RELIGIOUSASPECT.
This hymn gives us a remarkable view of the life after death, utterly different from the better-known Egyptian doctrines as to the future life. Instead of the deceased living a peaceful life in the Elysian Fields, sowing and reaping his corn, or sailing through the hours of day and night on board the bark of the Sun-god, we here see him as a mighty hunter, slaying and devouring the gods as food. So great is the terror inspired in the inhabitants of the celestial regions by the advent in the sky of the deceased Pharaoh, that the rain pours down, the earth quakes, the whole universe is thrown into disorder. On his arrival in the next world, the Pharaoh takes his seat before Geb as the judge of all creation, his power and glory pervading the whole sky. When he requires food, he hunts the gods as he was wont to hunt wild cattle upon earth, bringing them down with the lasso, while attendant spirits act the part of huntsmen, butchering the game, preparing it for food, and cleaning the cooking-pots after the meal. All sizes, large, medium, and small, are cooked for the Pharaoh's meals, the old ones, men and women, who are unfit for food, being burnt for incense. The internal organs, hearts, lungs, and viscerae, all are eaten, while the legs of the victims are used for fuel or to wipe out the cooking-vessels. The object of this cannibalism is quite unmistakable. By devouring the bodies of the gods, the Pharaoh not only obtains physical nutriment, but also becomes possessed of the powers and qualities of his victims: " He has swallowed the intelligence of every god "; "(Their magic is in his belly"; "He eats their magic and swallows their spirits "; "He is satisfied by living on hearts and their magic." By thus absorbing the power, intelligence, and magic of the gods, the Pharaoh combines in his own person all the attributes of divinity, and becomes Deity itself, the supreme Omnipotent. The text tells us so in the plainest of terms: "A warrant of appointment as 'Great Mighty One' is given to him by Orion, father of the gods"; "he has power over the mighty ones"; "he endows with divinity the great figures of the gods." His life becomes everlasting, he is free to act as he desires, and when he wishes he can mingle with those who are still living on earth. In considering the way in which such an idea arose, one is forced to the conclusion that it is a reflection of a custom of cannibalism which was either in full practice at the time
THE "CANNIBAL HYMN" FROM THE PYRAMID TEXTS 103 when this text was carved in the pyramids of Wenis and Tety, or had died out long before these kings reigned, but which had become enshrined in the religious literature. The first suggestion may be ruled out at once, as there is no evidence that cannibalism was practised in Egypt at the time of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, nor is it likely that such a custom would continue with a people that had attained to a high state of material and intellectual culture. There thus remains only the second alternative, that this hymn is a reflection of an ancient custom which had long since died out, but which became embalmed in the Pyramid Texts. The question then arises, at what date was cannibalism still practised ? Some evidence on this point is given by the text. The lines " He has eaten the Red Crown, he has swallowed the Green One," " Wenis rejoices (?) to devour the sbsw who are in (or 'with' ?) the Red Crown " show that the practice of eating one's opponents in war still obtained at the time of the struggle between Upper and Lower Egypt, which resulted in the wearer of the White Crown of the South overcoming the wearer of the Red Crown of the North, whose goddess was Buto, " The Green One." It might of course be objected that these lines are metaphorical in reference to the conquest of the North, and that they do not refer to actual cannibalism, but such an assumption involves giving the whole hymn a metaphorical and allegorical character, since there is no reason to suppose that the lines quoted above are metaphorical, to the exclusion of the remainder of the text. To assume, however, that this hymn is figurative throughout, is equally out of the question. The Egyptian, so far as his writings reveal him to us, was a literal person, whose attempts at metaphor were usually commonplace and often clumsy, and a piece of sustained symbolism such as this would be quite beyond his powers. We are thus forced to conclude that the lines referring to the conquest of the North are, in common with the rest of the hymn, to be taken literally, that this text does really represent the actual belief current when it was composed, and that cannibalism was still practised, at any rate during war, at the time of the struggles between the rival kingdoms. In our admiration of the civilization and achievements of the Egyptians, we are perhaps apt to forget that their remote ancestors were African savages, with customs probably similar to those of the African savage of to-day. That this hymn actually represents the belief of the kings in whose pyramids it appears is unlikely. These Pharaohs were sun-worshippers, followers of ReC,and so would of course accept the doctrine of the solar hereafter, which consisted of eternal association with the sun-god, as either a servant or an equal, according to which variant the individual adhered. It is, however, characteristically Egyptian to include utterly inconsistent ideas of the hereafter in the same body of religious texts, perhaps on the principle that if one belief failed in its purpose, another might serve, and so this hymn, gruesome in content but sanctified by age, found its way into the Pyramid Texts. It may possibly be more than a coincidence that it is found only in the two earliest of the inscribed pyramids of Sakkarah. Perhaps the later kings of the Sixth Dynasty felt that such a primitive view of the life after death was too crude for them to inscribe in their tombs. In conclusion, it may be pointed out that further evidence of the antiquity of the hymn is afforded by the fact that the only two great gods mentioned in it are Geb and Orion, both of whom, especially the latter, fall into the background in later times. There is as yet no trace of that Solar faith which, rising into prominence in the Fourth Dynasty, became in the Fifth Dynasty the State religion, and maintained that position to the end of Egyptian history, while there is equally no indication of the cult of Osiris, which did not attain its fullest power till the close'of the Old Kingdom.
