One thing I noticed when reading these two stories is that they are both epics, therefore they have many things in common. First of all just like in Gilgamesh, Sunjata himself goes on an epic journey and later returns back to his home. Sunjata definitely shows that he is way more mature that Gilgamesh, as far as a ruler goes, and he shows this maturity through his actions. One thing that was a little questionable to be was when Sunjata decided to cut his calf off just to help his companion Bala. Also there is some similarity in the two epics between the role that women play. In both of these stories, considering the time period women were both treated to follow the man, and live in the shadow of man. In the epic of Sunjata, Sunjata is a great king and many people look up to him, as well as his wife. Another similarity between the epic of Gilgamesh and the epic of Sunjata is the tole that nature plays. In the epic of Gilgamesh nature is seen as pure and powerful, and it is viewed the same way in Sunjata. For example, the tree is hard to split and it splits from the top to the bottom, showing the purity of nature and how powerful nature can be and how much it means to the culture.
Overall this was a very tough read for me considering the culture and the difficulty of pronouncing the names and terms. This is understanding because of the time period as well as the culture, and I found this as the most difficult to read and interpret to this date.
I didn't get the vibe about nature being pure and powerful so much from the part about the tree so much, but I do agree with you on the fact that nature certainly did have its respect in the culture. Obviously if his mom was only scared once in seven years, and that fright coming from a storm, then nature definitely does have a overwhelming power.
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