It is important to note that the British Albion was not always considered as a male, but on occasions as the “Lady Albine”.[152]
The Sabeans worshipped the many-breasted Artemis under the name Almaquah, which is radically alma, and the Greeks used the word alma as an adjective meaning nourishing. The river Almo near Rome was seemingly named after the All Mother, for in this stream the Romans used ceremoniously to bathe and purify the statue of Ma, the World Mother, whose consort was known as Pappas. Pappas is the Greek equivalent to Papa, and Ma or Mama meaning mother is so used practically all the world over. Skeat is contemptuous towards mama, describing it as “a mere repetition of ma an infantile syllable; many other languages have something like it”. Not only all over Asia Minor but also in Burmah and Hindustan ma meant mother; in China mother is mi or mu, and in South America as in Chaldea and all over Europe mama meant mother; Mammal is of course traceable to the same root, and it is evident that even were ma merely an infantile syllable it obviously carried far more than a contemptible or negligible meaning.
MA.
Fig. 24.—The Egyptian Ma
or “Truth”.
In Europe, Alma and Ilma are proper names which are defined as having meant either Celtic all good, Latin kindly, or Jewish maiden. In Finnish mythology the Creatrix of the Universe, or Virgin Daughter of the Air is named Ilmatar, which is evidently the All Mater or All Mother. Alma was no doubt the almoner of aliment, and her symbol was the almond. In Scotland where there is a river Almond, ben means mountain or head, and ben varies almost invariably into pen, from the Apennines to the Pennine Range.
It is said that Pan was worshipped in South America, and that his name was commemorated in the place-name Mayapan. Among the Mandan Indians, pan meant head, and also pertaining to that which is above; in China, pan meant mountain or hill, and in Phœnician, pennah had the same meaning. As, however, I have dealt somewhat fully elsewhere with Pan the President of the Mountains, I shall for the sake of brevity translate his name into universal or good.
In England we have the curious surname Pennefather;[153] in Cornwall, Pender is very common, and it is proverbial that Pen is one of the three affixes by which one may know Cornishmen.
As Pan was pre-eminently the divinity of woods and forests, Panshanger or Pan’s Wood in Hertfordshire may perhaps be connected with him, and the river Beane of Hertfordshire may be equated with the kindred British river-names, Ben, Bann, Bane, Bain, Banon, Bana, Bandon, Banney, Banac, and Bannockburn.
Bannock or Panak the Great Pan is probably responsible for the English river name Penk, and the name Pankhurst necessarily implies a hurst or wood of Pank. Penkhull was seemingly once Penkhill, and it is evident that Pan or Pank, the God of the Universe, may be recognised in Panku, the benevolent Chinese World Father, for the account of this Deity is as follows: “Panku was the first, being placed upon the earth at a period when sea, land, and sky were all jumbled up together. Panku was a giant, and worked with a mallet and chisel for eighteen thousand years in an effort to make the earth more shapely. As he toiled and struggled so he grew in strength and stature, until he was able to push the heavens back and to put the sea into its proper place. Then he rounded the earth and made it more habitable, and then he died. But Panku was greater in death than he was in life, for his head became the surface of the earth; his sinews, the mountains; his voice, the thunder, his breath, the wind, the mist, and the clouds; one eye was converted into the sun; the other the moon; and the beads of perspiration on his forehead were crystallised into the scintillating stars.”
The name Panku is radically the same as Punch, and there is no doubt that Mr. Punch of to-day represented, according to immemorial wont, with a hunch, hill, or mountain on his back, has descended from the sacred farce or drama. Punch and Punchinello, or Pierre and Pierrot are the father and the son of the ancient holy-days or holidays.