so he goes back to Gilgamesh’s kingdom
where Gilgamesh is right in the middle of trying to bang some dude’s wife
and Enkidu shows up like “Dude what the hell are you doing?
WANNA BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER INSTEAD?”
And Gilgamesh is like “YESSSS.”
so they punch at each other until they get tired of gargling their own teeth and then decide to be BFFs.
I am not a scientist, but this may be why women live longer than men.
Anyway, their first act as ULTIMATE BESTIES
is to walk all the way across the known world to punch Humbaba, the magic tree guardian.
Humbaba is not a bad dude or anything
he’s really more like those hippies that chain themselves to live oaks and whatnot
except he has INTESTINES all over his face
and his breath is a combination of DEATH and FIRE.
Anyway, Gilgamesh and Enkidu skip off toward this sacred cedar tree
LITERALLY HOLDING HANDS.
IT IS ADORABLE.
They skip for LEAGUES AND LEAGUES AND LEAGUES
and Gilgamesh keeps waking up in the middle of the night like “BRO, I HAD A BAD DREAM
IT WAS ABOUT VOLCANOS OR FIRE-BREATHING BIRDS OR LIGHTNING OR SOMETHING.”
And Enkidu is like “Naw, bro, those are totally sweet and appropriate things to dream about.”
BUT THEN THEY FINALLY FIND HUMBABA’S FOREST
and Humbaba pops out like “’Sup.”
And then this god Shamash who is apparently the sun god
suddenly shows up and hits Humbaba with ALL THE WINDS.
First there’s the winds you would expect like north, south, east, etc.
Then there’s some kinda reasonable stuff like blizzard, storm, and sandstorm.
But then shit really flies off the handle and we get whistling wind, ice wind, demon wind
and just straight up BAD WIND.
Anyway, all those winds immobilize Humbaba in an aethereal bukkake throwdown
so Gilgamesh is about to chop off Humbaba’s head
and Humbaba is like “DUDE WE ARE IN A FOREST.
THERE IS WOOD LITERALLY COMING OUT OF OTHER WOOD.
YOU DO NOT NEED TO MURDER ME FOR THIS SPECIFIC TREE.”
But Gilgamesh murders him anyway
and then he’s like “Sweet now I can use this tree to make a huge door.
I don’t really have a place to put a huge door right now
but like my grand-pappy used to say:
‘You never know when you’re gonna need a really huge door.’”
So they’re back at home, enjoying this sweet door and also each other’s company
when Ishtar has to come along and fuck it all up.
(Ishtar, by the way is the goddess of basically everything worth doing:
sex, war, and babies.
Wait, I don’t mean that you should do babies, though. That is gross/illegal.)
So Ishtar is like “HEY, GILGAMESH I HAVE THIS GAPING HOLE IN MY BODY
I’M WORRIED IT MIGHT JUST START SHOOTING OUT MY ORGANS OR SOMETHING
I HEAR YOU HAVE SOMETHING ABOUT THE RIGHT SIZE TO PLUG THIS HOLE
IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.”
And Gilgamesh is like “Whoa, girl, slow your roll.
Your tits are exceedingly fine but I am aware of a little something called history
and history tells us that every dude you have banged
has either caught on fire or turned into a dwarf.
I am sure there are dongs aplenty in this kingdom of mine.
Go nuts.
Just steer clear of MY nuts.”
So Ishtar goes up to Godtowne and she is like “GUYS GILGAMESH WON’T STUFF MY MUFF.
GIVE ME THE BULL OF HEAVEN SO I CAN GO RUIN EVERYTHING.”
Yeah, apparently they keep this bull around for if they ever need to ruin everything
and the gods are pretty laissez-faire about how it gets used
so Ishtar drags the bull down to earth
and Gilgamesh eventually sees it after it’s killed like a million people
and then he and Enkidu are like “BEST BUDS TAG-TEAM MURDERCYCLE YEAH!”
and they handle the bull to pieces in a matter of seconds, and steal its horns
and then they high-five so hard that another thousand or so people die.
BUT ALL IS NOT WELL, MY FRIENDS
because tonight it is ENKIDU’S TURN TO HAVE THE DREAMS.
He dreams that the gods are all sitting around talking
and they’re like “Man,
Enkidu and Gilgamesh are a two-man meatgrinder grindin’ up all our best abominations.
We gotta kill one of them, but we can’t kill Gilgamesh his name is in the title.
Guess we better kill Enkidu, huh?”
And Enkidu wakes up like “THERE IS NO POSSIBLE WAY TO INTERPRET THIS FAVORABLY.”
Then he gets real sick and he dies.
Now, we all know about the nine stages of grief or whatever
but those are for CHUMPS.
Gilgamesh’s grieving process has three steps:
Step one: Cry about it.
Step two: Make everyone else cry about it using your fists.
Step three: SEEK IMMORTALITY.
So he goes and talks smack to some scorpion dudes, who let him walk through a mountain
and then on the other side he finds THE WATERS OF DEATH
which is probably not the first place I would look if I were searching for immortality
but anyway, there is an inn there
and Gilgamesh threatens the innkeeper until she tells him how to get across the water
and then he threatens the guy who can get him across the water
and then he has to rebuild the boat he destroyed while threatening that guy
but finally they sail to the other side which is where Gilgamesh was trying to get, apparently.
And there’s this dude there called Utnapishtim
and he’s like “Whoa, you got some balls coming over here, son. What’s your name?”
and Gilgamesh is like “I’M GILGAMESH.
MY BEST PAL DIED NOW I WANNA BE IMMORTAL.”
And Utnapishtim is like “That is the most weak-sauce reason anyone has given me to do anything.
But anyway, let me tell you my life story:”
SUMMARY:
UTNAPISHTIM IS NOAH
EXCEPT HE SAVES A LOT MORE HUMANS AND THEN HE GETS TO BE IMMORTAL
THE END.
And after his story, Utnapishtim is like “So, you see I busted my ass for immortality
and frankly I don’t think the gods are down to do that again.
You may want to just take your punk ass back across the waters of death and go die like a man.”
But joke’s on Utnapishtim
because Gilgamesh got so bored of the story that he actually FELL ASLEEP.
But actually, joke’s on Gilgamesh
because Utnapishtim bakes a ton of bread and puts it next to Gilgamesh’s face
so that when he wakes up SEVEN DAYS LATER
he sees all this moldy bread and he is like “Ew, gross.”
But then I guess Utnapishtim feels bad about his prank
so he tells Gilgamesh about this weird immortality plant that grows at the bottom of the ocean
and then obviously Gilgamesh ties rocks to his feet and sinks to the bottom of the ocean
(Again, this does not seem like the behavior of a dude who is trying to not die)
and he gets this plant
but then he stops to take a bath on his way back home and a snake steals the plant
and
then eventually Gilgamesh gets old and dies miserable and alone
or maybe content and surrounded by whores.
The epic is not clear on this point.
So basically
Enkidu wouldn’t have died if that chick hadn’t boned him and then made him take a shower
and Gilgamesh would’ve had eternal youth if he hadn’t stopped for a bath
so the moral of the story
is that REAL HEROES NEVER BATHE.
NATIVE AMERICAN
Now the problem with dedicating a section to the whole of Native American mythology
is that there were a lot of people living in this country before we showed up and set it on fire
and some of them didn’t get along too well
and they ALL had their own stories
so trying to tell a cohesive Native American mythology
with only a handful of myths
is a lot like trying to cook an alphabet soup using only the letter “A”
so I highly recommend that you go online
and look up some Native American myths on your own
because there’s a TON of them
and they’re great
but for now
I am going to attempt to give you a small spoonful
of the alphabet soup that this country used to belong to.
WISAKEDJAK IS HIGHLY IRRESPONSIBLE
Now I know I told you there were a thousand and one pantheons to choose from here
but at least as far as creation myths are concerned
all the Native American stories start to sound pretty much the same after a while
so I picked the Algonquin version
because it is the one with the highest concentration of hilarious jerks.
Speaking of hilarious jerks, meet Wisakedjak.
His name is sometimes anglicized as Whiskey Jack
but that’s needlessly confusing
’cause this dude has nothing to do with whiskey
and in fact was around WAYYYY before whiskey
because what kind of creation myth would this be otherwise?
A much drunker one, that’s what kind.
But Wisakedjak is not the kind of dude who NEEDS whiskey to get down.
See, he’s a trickster god
who happens to be real tight with the creator.
So basically
the creator makes the world
and then he’s like “Dude, Wisakedjak
I am so tired from making this world and stuff.
How about you handle everything else now.
Like, teach everyone what roots are good to eat
and keep them from killing each other and stuff.
You know, pretty much everything I am actually personally responsible for doing
but like, the not-fun part of it.”
So the creator goes to sleep
and Wisakedjak proceeds to do the exact opposite of everything the creator told him to do
as in, he feeds everyone poison and goes around starting fights.
So then the creator wakes up from like a ten-year nap
and he’s like “Whooooaaaa, dude.
What did I tell you to do?
I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that.
You best clean up your act
Or else I’m gonna kill everybody and then you’ll be bored.”
So Wisakedjak calls bullshit
and just goes right on doing what he was doing
except like NINE TIMES HARDERRRR
he is running up to dudes like “HEY:
HEYYYY:
SEE THAT GUY OVER THERE?
HE KILLED YOUR DOG
HE KILLED YOUR PARENTS
MURDER HIM.
EAT THIS CYANIDE.
GO GO GO.”
And he just keeps doing this
until the earth is literally saturated with blood
there is nowhere for all this blood to go
it’s pretty upsetting
so at this point the creator shows up again like “THAT’S IT.
EVERYBODY DIES.”
So then everything floods, as usual
and the only things left alive
are Wisakedjak
(even though he is almost the entire problem)
plus an otter, a beaver, and a muskrat.
No fish, apparently
which is something I always wonder about in these flood myths.
Like, a flood seems like a really great way to punish every living creature in the world
except for fish.
What the hell is a god supposed to do when all the FISH start being assholes?
Anyway, let’s just sidestep that plothole completely
and cut to Wisakedjak sitting in the water with his animal pals
crying and feeling sorry for himself
when all of a sudden he has an idea.
He’s like “DUDES:
I can’t create anything ’cause I spent all my attribute points on being a dick
but I CAN infinitely expand anything that has already been created.
So I need one of you guys to dive all the way to the bottom of this water
and get me some dirt to expand.
HEY, CREATOR IT’S OKAY IF I DO THIS, RIGHT?”
And the creator is like “Sure you can make a new world
as long as you use all the material I wasted on the old world.
I don’t wanna have to go out and get a bunch of new dirt and whatnot.”
Man
the Algonquin people have them one LAZY creator.
So Wisakedjak is like “OTTER
YOU’RE SO BRAVE
GO DO IT AND I’LL MAKE SURE YOU ALWAYS HAVE FISH TO EAT”
so otter dives down
and comes back up with NO DIRT AT ALL
and he keeps trying until he is too weak to dive anymore
and Wisakedjak is like “Wow, dude
I am pretty disappointed in you.
Okay, it’s beaver’s turn.
Beaver, if you bring me some dirt then I will build you a house”
so beaver dives
and I’m pretty sure we all know how that turns out
because it’s not like beavers live in five-star hotels is it?
So finally Wisakedjak turns to the muskrat
and he’s like “All right, my man
I do not have high hopes for you.
In fact my hopes for you are practically subterranean.
But that may actually work in our favor in this situation
so if you make it to the bottom I’ll give you infinite roots to eat forever
plus rushes to make a house out of
and you’ll have, like, a billion babies. Seriously.”
So muskrat dives
and he comes up
and he has
NO DIRT
so he tries again
and he’s gone for a while
and he comes up real tired
and he still has no dirt
but here’s the important thing:
He SMELLS like dirt.
So Wisakedjak is like “Dude, you are so close.
Try one more time.”
So the muskrat dives down
and he’s gone for a LOOOONG time
and everyone is pretty sure he’s dead.
But then they see some bubbles
so they reach in and pull out the muskrat
who is pretty much dead
but he has just a little bit of dirt with him
which Wisakedjak turns into an island
and then they f
inally get to stop sitting in the water.
So then in the following days Wisakedjak finds some bones
and uses them to make animals
and he makes trees out of some wood
and then the creator waits for him to finish all this work
and then he’s like “All right, dude.
I just decided you don’t get to have powers anymore.
You just get the power to lie like a motherfucker.”
So Wisakedjak just uses that power as hard as he can for ever and ever
starting by failing to ever reward the muskrat
because at the end of the day what worse punishment is there
than being a muskrat?
So the moral of the story
is practice holding your breath
it’s good for more than just weird sex stuff.
KILLER-OF-ENEMIES AND THE INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF VAGINAS
So this is one of those myths where I almost don’t even need to retell it
I could just transcribe it word for word
and it would just end up looking like something I made up.
Watch:
So there’s this house full of vaginas, right?
Yup.
Just a big ol’ house stuffed full of vaginas.
They have actually got vaginas hanging on the walls
thick as wall scrolls in an otaku’s cave.
My friends, this is the quintessential tunaparty
tacofest
clambake
cervical circus
this place is lousy with vaginas, is what I’m saying.
But the lousiest vaginas of all
are these four girls called the vagina girls.
They are actually just giant vaginas.
Giant, shape-shifting vaginas that look like girls.
Oh, also
there are no vaginas anywhere else on earth at this point.
This place is essentially the Fort Knox of vagina
except the security team is actually just one guy
or actually one monster, named Kicking Monster
whose MO is to roll up on any poor jerk who enters the vicinity
and kick him INTO THE HOUSE.
This is not how guards work usually
but hey
no one who gets kicked into the house ever leaves
so Kicking Monster must be doing something right
although I think that may have more to do with the fact
that this is a house filled with ALL OF THE VAGINAS.
But even despite Kicking Monster
Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology Page 16