110 i Flora Unveiled
Shukaletuda is a boy who is charged by his father with building a well to irrigate the
family date orchard. But all the trees of the orchard have disappeared because Shukaletuda
has “pulled them all up by their roots and destroyed them.” Next, a storm wind blows dust
from the mountain into Shukaletuda’s eyes. Although his normal eyesight is impaired by
the dust, his spiritual vision is somehow enhanced because he sees the exalted gods on the
horizon:
He raised his eyes to the lower land and saw the exalted gods of the land where the sun
rises. He raised his eyes to the highlands and saw the exalted gods of the land where
the sun sets. He saw a solitary ghost. He recognized a solitary god by her appearance.
He saw someone who fully possesses the divine powers. He was looking at someone
whose destiny was decided by the gods.^61Shukaletuda then spies a familiar poplar tree and lies down under its shade to rest. At
that moment Inanna returns from her travels around the heavens. Exhausted, she lies down
by the roots of a poplar tree near where Shukaletuda is resting and falls asleep. Shukaletuda
notes that she is wearing a “loincloth of the seven divine powers” over her vulva. With the
help of a passing shepherd, he unties her loincloth and has intercourse with her while she
sleeps.
When Inanna awakens she discovers that she has been violated, and, in her rage, she fills
all the wells of the land with blood and begins searching for the man who raped her. The boy
Shukaletuda flees to the city and tries to escape by making himself as small as possible, but
Inanna eventually finds him. He begs for mercy, blaming his crime on the dust that blew in
his eyes, but she is unmoved:
"So! You shall die! What is that to me? Your name, however, shall not be forgotten.
Your name shall exist in songs and make the songs sweet. A young singer shall per-
form them most pleasingly in the king's palace. A shepherd shall sing them sweetly
as he tumbles his butter- churn. A young shepherd shall carry your name to where he
grazes the sheep. The palace of the desert shall be your home."^62One of the difficult aspects of this story is that it is made up of three fragmentary and
apparently unrelated episodes. In Part I, Inanna ascends the mountains to judge humanity,
to “identify the criminal against the just.” Ironically, her abstract mission in Part I becomes
personal in Part III when she herself becomes a victim of a crime.
Part II seems to refer to an earlier event, when the god Enki first created the date palm
with the raven’s help. There is also a hint of some sort of artificial pollination here. At least,
the raven seems to carry out an important task in the crown of the tree, enhancing the tree’s
fertility.
In Part III, the theme of date palms begun in Part II is continued with the boy gar-
dener Shukaletuda, who, instead of watering the trees as he was told, pulls them out of the
ground and allows them to die. Then a storm wind blows and the boy gets “dust” in his
eyes. The word for “dust” in Akkadian, taltallu, also means “date pollen.” Date palms are
thought to be wind- pollinated. While carrying out artificial pollination on a windy day, a