Although not a (true) physician, she wraps with bandages,
although not a (true) midwife, she wipes the baby clean.
She keeps count of the months of the pregnant woman,
cloistering off the doors of women about to give birth.– Old Babylonian (OB3) Lamashtu Incantation, lines 3–6, From Harvard Library Bulletin
Lamashtu was a lion-headed hawk footed female demon from Mesopotamia, often depicted suckling a wolf and a dog, while holding snakes and riding on the back of a donkey in a boat. She was interested in babies, children, and pregnant women– and not in a good way. She would sniff out homes with new babies, so she could sneak in later and devour it.
“she utterly smashes the tiny ones
she makes the mature ones drink fetal water” (i.e., amniotic fluid).– Old Assyrian (OA1) Lamashtu Incantation, lines 1–16, From Harvard Library Bulletin
Her feet are (those of) the Anzû-bird, her hands (spread) defilement;
her face takes the appearance of a ferocious lion.[38]
She arose out of the marshes, with her hair hanging loose, her underwear snipped off.
…
(Lamashtu said:) “Bring me your sons that I may suckle (them),
and your daughters that I may nurse (them),
that I may place my breast in the mouth of your daughters!”“RA”: The Incantation Thureau-Dangin (Late Babylonian) lines 3–5, 10–21, From Harvard Library Bulletin
She was the personification of maternal and infant mortality. If she could touch the stomach of a pregnant woman seven times it would cause miscarriage, stillbirth, or death of the pregnant woman. She abducted babies from wet-nurses and fed them on her poisonous milk.
“Great is the daughter of Heaven who tortures babies
Her hand is a net, her embrace is death
She is cruel, raging, angry, predatory
A runner, a thief is the daughter of Heaven
She touches the bellies of women in labor
She pulls out the pregnant women’s baby”
Her enemy was Pazuzu and he was ugly – so ugly that he was hired as an extra in the 1973 movie Exorcist but more importantly he was so ugly that it drove Lamashtu right off. Therefore it was good to have amulets of him in windows or on your person. Where Pazuzu is seen, mothers and babies were safe.
Which brings me to the unjust attack on Pazuzu by Hollywood, his image was famously used in the movie Exorcist (1973) as the demonic force and in Legend (1985): a statue of him is hanging out in the swamp where the hero, Jack, meets the hag Meg and his statues are seen in Darkness’s lair.
Irving Finkel, (the Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian script, languages and cultures in the Department of the Middle East in the British Museum, whew!) has a pet theory that Lamashtu and Pazuzu were married but had a nasty divorce. I am not alone in believing that Irving Finkel is humanity’s treasure and we must protect him at all costs.
But, if Pazuzu was busy, another way to get rid of demons was to put them in a little boat and send them down river. Lamashtu could be given feminine things to tempt her while an exorcist puts the boat with the bait into the fast moving Tigris river and off she goes.
Sources:
Wee, John Z. (No Date.)“The Lamashtu Amulet: A Portrait of the Caregiver as a Demoness.” Harvard
Library Bulletin.
The Baby Historian 