RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESwomen at critical times, such as childbirth, and on children. In this
aspect, the Aramaic and Mandaic Lilith inherited her hostility towards
children from the Akkadian Labartu, a female demon whose wild and
disheveled appearance corresponds to the pictures of Lilith on the
incantation bowls.^25
Demons lurked in deserts and graveyards and haunted the thresh-
olds, corners, beams, and roofs of houses.^26 They caused accidents,
misfortunes, sickness, and poverty. However, they could be controlled
and their maliciousness could be directed against a particular victim
by the curse or spell of an envious person. The demons could be set
in motion by the evil eye, incantations, or by even numbers; by knock-
ing, spitting, or tying knots to bind the curse; by egg charms to separate
a woman from her husband; and by melting the wax figurine of a
living personY
This kind of magic was an expression of social hostility among
relatives (especially in-laws), over the division of inheritance, and be-
tween employees and employers who cheated them of their wages.^28
The incantation bowls testify to the social conflicts and fears among
the villagers of the central Sawad in the sixth and seventh centuries.
There was also an element of resentment towards the increasing male
domination of the new religious order taking shape in the Sasanian
period. The Magian priests, Jewish rabbis, and Christian clergymen
and monks were all men, venerated a male deity, and regarded women
as evil, the source of evil, or spiritually inferior to men. There were
no priestesses in the new order, no female figures approaching the
power, authority, and appeal of the ancient goddesses, and there was
a significant rise in the importance of female demons. For Magians,
the demon Jeh, the childbearer, was the ally of Ahriman. Ahriman
25 Neusner, History, pp. 219, 223, 229, 231; Yamauchi, Incantation Texts, pp. 23-
26.
26 Gordon, "Magical Bowls," p. 324; Neusner, History, pp. 219, 229; Yamauchi,
Incantation Texts, p. 22.
27 Gordon, "Magical Bowls," p. 324; Montgomery, Incantation Texts, p. 248; Neus-
ner, History, pp. 184-85; Rodkinson, Talmud, V, "Pesachim," 228; idem, XIV, "Baba
Bathra," 363-64; idem, XVI, "Sanhedrin," 320-21; Yamauchi, Incantation Texts, pp.
19,59-60,61,225; idem, "A Mandaic Magic Bowl from the Yale Babylonian Col-
lection," Berytus 17 (1967-68), 60. Such practices are reflected in the Qur'anic reference
to the evil of women who blow on knots (Sura 113:4), and to Hariit and Mariit, two
angels in Babil (actually two of the Magian Amashaspends) who revealed magic to Jews
and taught people how to use magic to cause discord between man and wife (Sura
2:102).
28 Gordon, "Magical Bowls," pp. 324-25; Yamauchi, Incantation Texts, pp. 17-18,
175, 179,269.