Pazuzu- Mesopotamian DemonDemon"King of the Wind Demons"

The Demon Who Protects

Pazuzu, son of the demon Hanbi, was king of the lilû, the wind demons who brought the hot southwestern wind from the desert. That wind meant locusts, failed crops, and fever. He had the snarling head of a lion and four wings, with a scorpion's tail and ribs jutting through the skin. Everything about him was concentrated danger.

Yet his image was placed in homes to protect the most vulnerable: pregnant women and newborn children. Inscriptions on his amulets preserve his own declaration: "I am Pazuzu, king of the evil wind-demons. I ascend the mountain in fury. The winds that blow on the horizon are my winds." These texts did not ward him off. They invited him in, turning his power against an even greater threat.

Enemy of Lamashtu

That threat was Lamashtu, the demoness who attacked pregnant women and nursing mothers, who snatched infants from the breast and killed them. She acted from pure malice, without any divine mandate. Against such a creature, prayers to the great gods might not avail. But Pazuzu, himself demonic, could confront Lamashtu on her own terms.

The Lamashtu plaques show this conflict carved in stone: the demoness in full fearsome form with Pazuzu's head rising above her, dominating and compelling her departure. Small bronze heads with suspension holes were hung in doorways and over beds. When Lamashtu was believed to have attacked, exorcists performed ceremonies calling upon Pazuzu to drive her out, sometimes making a Lamashtu figurine provisioned with food for a journey and symbolically expelled to the desert under his authority.

Pazuzu remained a demon. King of the evil wind. His power was genuinely destructive. But he was strong enough to frighten what frightened everyone else, and that was enough.