Kakama! Amen?

[anzu]

Anyone know the term kakama? I have never heard it before outwith this mention, so surprised to read is was considered a typical word used when closing a hymn in Akkadian?

The only reference I can actually find to the word is from "Chaldean magic : its origin and development" Originally published in 1877

“LENORMANT1 says: “All the hymns of the third book finish by the Accadian word Kakama, which is translated in Assyrian by “amen,” “amanu….As a foreign word kakama was subject to more or less corruption when passing into the Polynesian language,…To the Accadians kakama was a regular participle of the verb kaka, meaning, “it is confirmed,” and as such it was employed at the close of a prayer or hymn.”

[us4-he2-gal2]

Hello Anzu:



I can see the appeal of Lenormant's book. It is sort of intriguing in a 'history of ideas' sort of sense what with that emerald green cover and the impression of the Pazuzu face. It must have been and compelling to intellectuals of the late 1800s, full of esoteric oriental intrigue and the front cover appropriately fashioned for that purpose. It is interesting to flip through and see what Lenormant makes of his subject matter and he is to be commended for pioneering this study. On the other hand, it is of basically no use to academics today, outside of the history of scholarship angle. The study of cuneiform was in its infancy in 1877 and our understanding of the values of signs and the vocabulary of Akkadian has developed significantly since this book was published. As a result, many of the claims Lenormant makes are misleading and do the reader a disservice.


It is understandable why you would end up using this book since it is long out of copyright and freely distributed. It is thus much easier to find online then up to date scholarly works. However, I would recommend you instead try searching terms such as "Mesopotamian Magic" and "Udug hul" at b-ok.cc/

See for example: b-ok.cc/s/Mark%20Geller%20Udug%20Hul

One of the results, Healing Magic and Evil Demons by Geller, is a new treatment of the which texts Lenormant goes over (plus many more) and represent the state of the field, the best and most accurate editions of these texts ever produced.


As for Lenormant's claim that incantation texts ended with kakama which is an Akkadian word for 'amen' this is an example of how imprecise scholarship was in 1877. Of course, it was good for 1877 but still entirely inaccurate. The three signs he reads as Akkadian ka-ka-ma were actually intended by the ancient scribe to spell the Sumerian KA.INIM.MA.


As the KA sign here means 'mouth' and the INIM sign here means 'word' and the MA sign entails 'of' a literal translation may mean something like 'word of the mouth' - however, Geller and other scholars who work with these texts translate KA.INIM.MA in English as 'incantation' which is an approximate translation (an interpretation of what the Sumerian was intended to mean, rather than what it literally says. The KA.INIM.MA is a rubric which occurs at the end of incantations often together with the type of incantation or with a divine name, as in 'incantation of type X which (comes from / is the words of) X deity'. In this way, the ancients magically signified that the incantation text is not their own words, does not rely on their own power, instead the incantation was the words of X deity, and the magic comes by way of divine legitimization. In sum, it doesn't relate to or mean amen (at the same time, there is some conceptual similarity and functional overlap - an entirely distinct word nonetheless).