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| Ama-gi in the Sumer Cuneiform script |
But, we can trace the word (if not the concept) of freedom
back much earlier, to the Sumer civilisation, emerging during the 6th
and 5th millenia BC in Mesopotamia. The earliest known written use
of the word is from the reign of Urukagina, a Sumer king, who ruled during the
24th century BC.
The derivation of the word (ama-gi in the Sumer
language) is interesting. Ama is the Sumer word for mother, and gi
means return, restore, put back. Hence, ama-gi literally means return
to mother.
How did the notion of freedom derive from returning
to mother?
One theory (there is no definitive answer) is that
when Sumerian slaves were given their freedom, they were allowed to return to
their mother (either literally or figuratively, as in “mother land.”)
The Sumerian culture was a matriarchal one in many
ways. Hence, to return to mother would seem to be a natural, and
preferred, option when a slave was given their freedom.
There is another possibility.
Sumerian cosmology was a polytheistic one. At the head
of the theism was Nammu (a goddess) who created An (God of the
Heavens) and Ki (Goddess of the Earth.) An and Ki produced
a number of deities, one of whom was Enlil (God of the Air.) It was Enlil
who managed to cleave apart his parents – An and Ki. Thus was
created the heavens and the earth.
Being separated, Ki married her own son, Enlil.
From that union, all life upon Earth was produced. In this cosmology then, Ki
is the mother of all life upon the earth.
Thus, it is possible to envisage ama-gi (freedom) as
meaning the “freedom to return to Mother Earth.”
Jumping ahead several thousand years, perhaps today we
should be seeking our “freedom” somewhere else, rather than pursuing a very
individualised notion of it.
For, there is a freedom to be found in Nature, in the
embrace of Mother Earth. This freedom is a highly inter-connected, intricate,
and complexly interwoven one.
It is a freedom we have become disconnected from. This
disconnect has had unhealthy consequences for us, individually, socially, and
planetary. In 2005, the author Richard Louv coined the term Nature Deficit
Disorder to describe this growing alienation.1 In his book he
also outlined the benefits of spending time in nature and re-establishing our “natural”
connection with Nature.
Is this what the Sumerians had in mind when the word ama-gi
was formed? We will probably never know.
However, conceptualising freedom as a return
to Mother Earth is a valuable way to approach many of the problems we have
in the world today; toxic individuality, environmental damage, and loss of
connection.
Note:
1 Louv, Richard: Last Child In The Woods: Saving our children from nature deficit disorder, Workman Publishing Company, New York, 2005.
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