[p.185]

THE NATURAL GENESIS

SECTION 4

NATURAL GENESIS AND TYPOLOGY OF NUMBERS

The limits are here identical with the origins; and to demonstrate the one is to define the other.

[p.190] This is also a type-name for the woman, as:—

Likewise for the hand and the uterus, as in:—

The Hebrew name of the one, as chad or achad is related to chadi in the middle, that which divides in two, as the breast; also the place where the two halves divide.

Achad is applied to unity as well as to the unit, hence it means together.

The Hebrew rites of achad, the only one, denounced by Isaiah[4] in a confused but conscious passage, applied to that primordial unity only to be found in the female nature, which was personified in the mother, as Kat-Mut and Hat-hor; the British Kêd; Katesh, an Egyptian form of the naked goddess Ken or Chivn; and Kotavi, the naked type of Durga in India. The female alone divides to become two and she therefore was the only one who is still worshipped by the Yonias as the one alone from the beginning.

Under the type-word ankh we also get back to a oneness, or a one in phenomena which is represented by the ankh-tie, the hank or ing as a community, and the ng as first person who duplicates.

Inek is number 1 in the African Shiho, inneke in Danakil. This one is the man in the Eskimo Inuk or Innuk. In Egyptian ank is the one as the king, the first person, the I or A one. Enika, aku, is oneness applied to personality.

Ankh also denotes duplication, and Ank the mother is the one who duplicates. Several other types of oneness and the one that duplicates are extant, in the ankle, knuckle, and the neck, the hinko in Nyamwezi: the ancha, Arabic; hanche, French; haunch, English, for the hip; the inoku for the navel, Nyamwezi, as the place of duplication where the two were joined together, and severed. Naka, Maori, means connection; niko is the tie. The anga, Maori, is a bivalve fish. Hangi, Nyamwezi, is repetition, and duplication.

Here then we have a type-word which signifies the one (like the hand, foot, or ear), as the initial point of reckoning. Under such a type-name we may expect to find the numbers 1 and 2; 5 and 10 because of the two sexes, the two hands, and the digital origin of reckoning.

In keeping with these initial limits the Maori anake is the one, only, unique, without exception.

The Xhosa onke, for one (one loaf of bread), every one, is also a plural, and signifies the all which, as the typology shows, may be [p.191] comprised in the dual one or oneness of the beginning, that divided and became twain.

In the Kaffir languages nye, earlier nge, signifies oneness, unity. Hanac is the one in Quichua. Nge or nye is the African guttural-nasal, no, the sound of negation which was first, whether represented by the water, the motherhood, or the left hand.

The English ing or hank is one as a body of people; the Hottentot hongu is one as a group of seven and the number 1 is:—

Also,

Ankh or nak is also a common type-name for number 2.

Nak permutes with nas, and in this form of number 2 we have:

The ankh (Eg.), as ear, is both one and two. So is it with the hand or panka (Sanskrit). In the Portland dialect (Australia) the ear is named wing, which reminds us that the wing also duplicates and becomes a pair, like the ear or the hand. Pankti (Sanskrit) number 5, a set or cluster of five, is also the number 10, because the pair, as arms, subdivides into 5 and 10 as fingers.

Ango is five in Dofla, and inge, in Abor (the same group of languages), is number 10.

The type-names, then, for number 1 include various forms of the one that became two, or had a dual manifestation and are not limited to the hand. These may be the one being that bifurcates as Omoroka; the one mother that divides into mother and sister or mother and child; the one species of the two sexes; the male front [p.192] and the female hind-parts. One person with two halves, upper and lower, or hands, right and left.

The notion of oneness and firstness preceded that of one in reckoning, and this had several types. The mother was first; darkness was first; water was first; the left hand was first. The Hebrew ה, or heh, which the rabbis tell us 'all came out of,' has the numeral value of 5, the equivalent of one hand, hence it interchanges with the yod (hand). The left, inner or female hand, is the first that was used in reckoning the number five.

The Australian ngangan, for the mother, signifies the thumb. So in Maori matua the first, the parent, denotes the thumb, the koro-matua, as the first or fifth, the one or the sum of the five. The first one and five were those of the left hand, the mother-hand, or inferior first. Whereas 'tupa,' the other thumb, in Xhosa Kaffir, is also the name for number 6. This was a male type. Reckoning from the left hand as the first and foremost is yet extant amongst the Kaffirs in whose social system the wife of the left hand is the great lady; the wife of the right hand is the secondary and lesser one. Also the son of the left hand is the elder, superior—who is the principal heir, and the chief of the first clan; the son of the right hand being the inferior one—the head only of a secondary clan[5]. This progression from left to right illustrates the bifurcation of beginning in the societary phase, just as the circle of heaven was divided to become two, as night on the left hand, and day on the right.

The Egyptian un or one is the round of an hour. The circle is represented by the cipher, as the first figure or one. The circle, the nought, the cipher, is still the primordial figure, as the sign of zero. It has gone down low, or rather remains first; it is the repeater and dominant determinative of figures, and still gives significance to all the rest.

The Welsh cyfr, English cipher, French chiffre, Arabic sifron, Italian zephiro, Swahili sifuru, Hebrew רמס, may all be derived from the Egyptian khefr or khepr. Khepr means to figure, to make the figure, form, or type which in the cipher is a circle. In Africa the beetle, khepra, was an early form of the cipherer or chiffrer (French), because he was observed to roll up his ball in the shape of a cipher, or of the worldi. His name is derived from khep, to form and figure forth.

The figures made use of in Africa, which are called the 'gobar' figures, bear the name of Khepra—a name probably derived from the scarab (khepr) as the figurer. 'Gobar,' says Max Muller[6], 'means dust, and those figures were so called because, as the Arabs say, they "were first introduced by an Indian who used a table covered with fine dust for the purpose of ciphering."' Ghubâr is dust in Arabic; gobar, [p.193] cow-dung in Hindustani; but, if we read khepr for the Indian who used dust for his figures we shall recover the original cipherer of the legend in the beetle (khepr) that rolled up its ball of dung and dust and covered its seed in making the first figure or cipher.

The beetle was a lunar emblem before it was assigned to the solar god, and the figure made by the renewing moon was that of the horned crescent orbing into a circle. The figure of the new moon is kupra in Etruscan, and kibulia in the African Guresa language. These correspond by name to Khepra, the figurer of the circle in Egypt, and to the 'gobar' figures of the Africans. But the earliest maker of the circle in heaven that is related to time and number was the genetrix Kep, the goddess of the Seven Stars, who carries in her hand the noose sign } of ark, a period, an ending, a turn round, i.e., a time. She was the mother of the first revolution, registered as a figure, circle and cycle of time, in a latitude where the Great Bear was the Dipper below the horizon at the crossing in the north. Her symbolic figure combines a circle and a cross, the image of the circle above the horizon and the crossing below. In making her circle and in crossing she formed the cipher and the cross-sign of ten; and Kep is the first one in Egyptian mythology—the genetrix whose hands are said to be the two bears. Kep or Kef was the mother of beginnings, and in Barnbarra kufolo is the beginning.

So uâ (Eg.) in the feminine gender is Uat, the genetrix, and the one in Coptic; uata, the woman, as mother, in Hausa; and Uat is another form of this goddess of the north.

The mother then is our chief type of number one or the first in figures and numbers, as she is in nature and in the mirror of mythology.

Horapollo tells us the vulture, mu, represented 'Two Drachmas, because among the Egyptians the Unit of money was the two drachmas, and the Unit is the Origin of every number; therefore, when they would denote two drachmas they, with good reason, depict a Vul­ture, inasmuch as, like Unity, it seems to be Mother and Generation in one.'[7] This was as a type of the Two Truths, or the dual one. The Alexandrine interpreters of the Old Testament always reckon the Hebrew money by the didrachma. For the drachma they use the half of a didrachma, τό ημίσυ τοΰ δίδράχμον. The vulture, mu, was the sign of the gestator, the royal mother, the woman of the Two Truths, who wore the double crown; the one that first duplicated. This, too, shows a beginning with bi-unity of type in which the dual may be said to precede the singular.

In the inner African languages the mother is identical with the number 1 as the mama (variants nga-nga, nana, and kaka). Number 1 is:—

In the Tungus dialects:—

This reduced form of the primary momu takes on the terminal t and becomes met, number t, Cochin; mot, number 1, Tonquin just as mmu and mu become mut in the African languages. The full form is momo or momu; mô, as in Bayon, is the reduced word. Momo, mom or mam, for the one enables us to identify this name of the one with the mother. Mmu, mu, or m, denotes the mother, in Egyptian; and Mu, the vulture-type of the genetrix. Mam, umam, umma, and ma, are the mother in the Kiranti dialects. This type-name for the mother is widespread.

 In the African languages the mother is:—

These, with their variants and reduced forms, show a general type-name for the mother in Africa.

It is still more to the purpose that the grandmother, the old, first mother should bear the same name almost universally as the mama, or the mâ.

The mother, then, was the first person, as the mama. Mama to bear, to carry, denotes the enceinte mother. In the single form [p.195] the word this becomes mâ, mu, or mo, for the mother, and for the number 1. In Egyptian the reduced mâ or mû takes on the feminine terminal t to become the mât or mût, the mater and mother; whence came those words. The mother being the first person recognized as primus, we may expect to find hers is the first personal name, or the pronoun of the first person. This appears in the African languages as:

The mô, ma, and mi being likewise universal for the I, or, as we have it in English, the me. This is mam in the Avesta; memet, Latin; mu, Akkadian; mû Proto-Median; mâ, Finnic; ma, Ostiac; me, Etruscan; me, Ziranian; mi, Welsh and Irish. The primordial personality was not that of Self—not the I or Me, but that of the mammy, the mother, the my one, mine. The African mame, in the Kaffir languages, is the abstract form of the motherhood; and 'mame' is my mother. Captain Burton says the African negro is still a child who, in his fear or distress, will call on his 'mama'[8] above, like any other infant. The Hindu does the same, to quote no others. 'Mame' is a Kaffir exclamation, a call to stop, and an invitation to a feast. Momi, in Maori, is to suck; mama, to ooze through a tiny aperture, as does the milk from the mammae—the maameyhu, or mother's breast, in the Carib languages. Mamma, Fin, is the mother's breast; mamme, Dutch, is the mother, nurse, and breast; mamman is to give suck. The African 'mama,' interchanges with nana, for the mother, the first one, and this also is a type-name in language for number 1, as,

The inner African n is commonly sounded ng, and nana represents nga-nga. Thus the mother is named:—

which furnishes another form of the first personal pronoun.

[p.196] This supplied a universal form of tile first personal pronoun, ranging through:

and numbers more. This root of the one gave the name to the ank (Eg.) forking; Greek anax; Peruvian Inca, Maori heinga; Irish aonach (prince); Arabic aunk; Malayan inchi (master); the Basque jainco (Jingo) for the divinity. These were applied to the male who came to the front as the chief one, the ruling I of later times. The earliest male ankh, however, was not the father, but the uncle, the Kaffir nakwabo or sister's brother, on account of the blood-tie; he who became nakh or ank (Eg.) at puberty. With the Hottentots, the uncle is the naub or ancestor. The mother of life, ank, the goddess of life in Egypt, and the ankh or hank of people, were still earlier. The female was the first known reproducer of the particular child, and therefore was recognised and named as the primal parent, the one, the earliest ankh or ancestor.

The primary mode of duplicating in language was by repeating the word, syllable, or sound. And ankh (Eg.) to duplicate, to double, a pair, is the name of the mother in the duplicative stage, as:—

This dual form is perfectly preserved in the Australian and Maori languages, where ngangau is the mother in the West Australian. Ngaingoi, Maori, is the typical old woman, answering to ank (Eg.) the mother of life. Nêing-Menna, Tasmanian, is the mother. Ngango in Yarra (Aust.) is the breath. In the Pine Plains (Aust.) dialect, ngango signifies the very beginning.

These show the ankh of the beginning under the duplicated form of the name, the mother being the first duplicator. This primordial type-name is that of the woman, as:—

Nga wears down to the eka, ich, and I. It did so in Africa, as:—

[p.197] Again, water, drink, or suck, is another form of the first one, as the element of life derived from the mama and mammae. It is the primary truth of the two in mythology. And water is:—

With many variants and worn-down forms in ômi, ûmi, âmee, and mâ. Blood, the mystical water of life, is mme in Abadsa; mmei in Aro, African. Mum in Japanese signifies that which is primordial, the first, and in the Assyrian creation the mumu or mami are the waters of creation. Mamari in Polynesian is the spawn of the waters. This inner African type-name for water and the mother-source still survives, as:—

The mother and water are one in mythology, and both have the same name in the earliest stage of language—that of the mere duplication of sounds to constitute words.

It is now suggested that ma-ma signifies the mother (bearer) in Egyptian—

because of the origin in inner Africa as the birthplace of language.

The number 2 in the African languages is—

and others.

The Param language shows that pipa is a modified form of mpipa or mbipa; as befai is the abraded form of mbefai in Afudu. The mb of the primitive pronunciation having been worn down to the simple b in 'befai.' As abraded forms of the original momo for number 1 and mbefa number 2 we have:

[p.198] The father in Africa is a type of papa or mbefa, number 2.

Here the father coincides by name with the number 2, and as the foot is also a figure of two, this will account for its being named pupu, ipupo, etc., in the Carib languages, as well as for;

being equivalent to the two as feet. These inner African type-words for the mother and father are found in various other groups of languages. The African mb is also preserved in the Barre dialect of America.

The worn-down forms are also African, as—

M (mam) and b (bab) as signs of the first and second, the mother and male, are numerically equal to one and two, or the singular and plural numbers in language; and in the Kaffir dialects the um prefix stands for the singular number, and aba is the first plural. Thus um-fazi is a (one) woman; aba-fazi, women. Um-ntu is a person; aba-ntu, these persons (from which we may derive the Bantu name).

It was not the individualised father, however, who was first named; the baba, bube, or bêbê—

was the earliest male.

The pup is the young one. The pubes constituted the one who was pubens, whence the papa as begetter. In Egyptian, pa-pa means to [p.199] produce, and this is first applied to the female being delivered of a child, she who was the primordial producer. Pepe (Eg.) signifies to engender. The name for mankind, the race and the male, is derived from this root, based on puberty. Papa, or pepe (Eg.), contains the elements of 'the he;' the him or it of a masculine gender. The reduced pâ also becomes the masculine article. The 'papa,' or inner African father, whether as the second of two, or as the reproducer and male duplicator, is indicated in the duplicative stage of sounds. This is continued in pepe, to engender. It is visibly reduced to pâ for the masculine pronoun, and then instead of the pa being repeated, as in 'papa' for the father, a dual terminal t was added, and we have pât or bat (Eg.) as the name for the pater, vater, or father, and pati (Sanskrit) for the husband. Instead of pepe, to engender, bat is to inspire the soul (or paba), give breath to by means of the male. With the addition of t, ti, or a sign of 2, for a terminal, we have the plural in a more workable form, and pât serves for mankind in general, whereas papa was limited to the producer. In the same way sen-sen is the Coptic word for sound, based on sen-sen to breathe, or breathe-breathe. But in the secondary stage of formation sen-sen is represented by sen-t (Eg), the English sound. The t or d being used instead of repeating the same sound. So 'papa' served as a sign of number 2, reckoned by the repetition of a sound; but, with the figure of two added in the t, reckoning was superseded, and the sign for reading took the place of the sound repeated for the ear.

Egyptian shows the visible passage from this inner African stage of mere duplication of the same sound to denote the second, the reproduced, or the reproducer, to the later mode of indicating the duplication by means of a dual terminal, in which process the papa or baba as reproducer became the bâ.t or pât, and the father of later language; as the mama became the mât or mut, the mother. Papa then was reduced to pâ, and the terminal t (or ti) was added to form the word pât (bat), as the name for the second, or dual one. In Egyptian, for example, pehi-peh is synonymous with pehti, and these likewise show the two modes of duplication. Peh-peh, or pehti, is the lioness in two halves. This dual one was the child, at first, on account of the two sexes. Also it was the male child at two periods. In various African languages the boy is known by two different names—the one before, and the other after, puberty.

Another type of the dual one is the foot or put (Eg.), and the pud or hand, the one that divides and becomes twain. Fut (Eg.) is to be divided and separated, and the foot is a type. Thus pat (Eg.) is two handfuls.

[p.200] In this final form the letter b suffices to figure the duality of pat, the earlier pa-pa, to the eye; and in the hieroglyphics a double p deposits or represents the sound and sign of b.

The foot is a type of number 2. It was named in the inner African languages as—

And this type-word is universal for the foot.

But the primordial type of the one that divided to become two is the female or uterine abode which is the

We have now got pat, put, fut, for the typical two, in place of papa; and pat (Eg.), for two handfuls, when applied to the digits, is equivalent to number 10. Thus putolu, two hands or two feet, is number 10 in the Micmac Indian. And this will explain why number 10 has the same name, especially in the old non-Aryan languages of India.

So in the African languages the name for number 10 is a form of the number 2, as—

The one is followed by two, either through dividing or adding. The mother became two by dividing or bifurcating at the link of the umbilical cord. This accounts for other type-names of the number two. One of these is pet, pat, or bat. The goddess Pekh divided into the two halves of the Lion which was masculine in front and female behind.

The Brahmins say, 'The supreme Spirit in the act of creation became, by Voga, twofold.'[9]

Pik, in Chinese, is to cleave; pakohu, Maori, is the cleft or division; pakato, Zulu, the uterus; pate, Maori, denotes the sound made in [p.201] dividing or rending in two; and in Toda, the umbilical cord is the pokku, that which is severed at birth, when the one becomes twain.

Abeka, in Kaffir, is to divide by spontaneous or internal action; pagu in Tamul, is to divide; phaka, Vayu, means by halves; posh, English gipsy, is one half, a halfpenny.

When the human being is divided into front and hind part, the pekh (Eg), or rump, is the back, the hinder of two halves. Thus page, Gundi, is the hind part; pak, Chinese, the back. The page is one side of the leaf which divides in two. The peg is divided, or serves to divide. The word epoch, for a solemn date, denotes the division applied to time. And in the African Isubu language, the epoke is the native name for the division. So primitive is the application, that the people divide their day into three epokes, and have no other reckoning of time[10].

According to Caesar, Gaul, of the Kelte, was divided into forty-three pagi, clans, or communities[11]. In this instance the pagi is tribal, and the divisional name is applied to the people on the land.

The pekha or fekh (Eg.), for a reward, signified the division as a share, and this was the primary form of fee and pay, both in nature and by name.

In Java and Tibet the number two is expressed by paksha, a wing or other member that is twofold. A pickaxe is a double weapon. A pikel is a two-pronged fork. Piebald is pick-bald, or two-coloured as is the magpie, and in Devon this duality is called pie-picked.

The pigeon, or dove, like the pye, is a parti-coloured bird.

The bat is a twin-type, and the Scotch call this winged mammal a 'bakie' bird; the Maori name for it is peka-peka; both 'bat' and 'bakie' denote the twofold nature, and both are derived (with two different terminals) from an original baba, papa, or pepe, to divide, be double, become twofold.

Number 5 is the dividing number on the left hand, and number 6 on the right. In the African languages number 6 is named both

just as bakie and bat are two names of the winged mammal in Scotch.

'The bat,' says Horapollo, 'was an Egyptian image of the mother suckling her child.'[12] It represented that bi-unity of being which was first seen in the mother who had 'bagged'; and next was typified in the bach or Bacchus, the child of both sexes.

Bak and pak, to be dual or divide, will explain the name of the foot; as—

[p.202] Also the moon, which is dual in its lunation, is

The frog is the divider, named bheki in Sanskrit.*

* Pekh. A type-word like this may be followed in language under numerous co-types. It is an inner African name for the knife, as the divider, which is

  In the Tinneh (American) group of languages this supplies the name of the knife; as