(Mythologists sometimes speak of the "etiological tale", a "tale of how 'it' might have happened" -- a kind of hypothesis become myth. Scholars of mathematical history suggest that, in prehistoric times, women, while inventing the art of ceramics -- and other benefits of civilization -- also invented geometry as a means of decorating their work. Hence, this is a hypomyth. Pottery of "The New Stone Age" with geometric ornamentation.)

      Momma Geometry slaps the clay,
      Like a midwife slapping at birth.
      Kneading the twisted, inchoate mound,
      Coaxing the plastiform into the round,
      Wheedling and crooning, the coil is round
      Into a breast of earth.
      "Soo-mah-loo     Hee-tuh-ree
      Waken! my little jar.
      Licked by the fire, you'll gleam like a star.
      Then filled up with milk you'll be!"
 
      Momma Geometry slaps the clay
      Like a hundred momas before.
      Shaping and firing each jar and pot
      Used by her folk, she esteems her lot,
      Pouring her love out, her work is fraught
      With kennings of ancient lore.
      "Soo-mah-loo    Hee-tuh-ree
      Perk up! my lazy bowl.
      Round as you roll, I breathe in your soul:
      A celebrant of food you'll be!"

      Momma Geometry paints the clay
      Like glazed hoarfrost painting the grass.
      Abstracted patterns of dottings and lines,
      Circles and whirls, symmetric designs,
      Signs geometrical, deft she refines
      Into a spatial mass.
      "Soo-mah-loo   Hee-tuh-ree
      Grace space!  my little rune,
      Splayed out and strewn, close in a tune,
      Freeze into song, and be free!"

      Poppa Magician mimics her signs
      Like a jackdaw stealing bright stones.
      Cryptically sifting each curl and stroke;
      Searching their arcanic scope to invoke:
      Beasts to enchant, dread sickness provoke --
      A sanction behind thrones and shrines.
      "Hee-tuh-ree!    Soo-mah-loo!
      Feign force!  my magic mark.
      Dawning and dark, enclose like an ark!
      Power and glory, ensue!"

      Momma Geometry laughs as she slaps,
      Quite aware of the theft of each sign.
      Women creators have showered largesse:
      Planting the seed, nursing at breast,
      Taming wild fowls, feeding the guest --
      Cornucopias, profligate, divine.
      "Soo-mah-loo!   Hee -tuh-ree!
      Enjoy!  my Woman's gift.
      What need of thrift!  Show miser's short shrift!
      Creators endow to be free!"
                  
      Poppa Magician, vain eons intent,
      Uncovers new use for this art.
      Tracings in dust, engraven on stones,
      Writing invented to outlive his bones,
      History invented to boast what Man owns.
      (No record to paint Woman's part.)
      Hee-mah-loo.   Soo-tuh-ree.
      Take heed, Creators!  Repent!
      Woman's part is a mystery, lost talk in prehistory,
      Since writing She failed to invent!

(Published, 1977, in Rustlings, Marina Rogers-Flores, Editor, with jh-copyright. Motivation: Reading in Peter Freyd's introduction to his mathematical memoir, Abelian Categories, that Emmy Noether was "the Mother of abstract algebra". The part about "Poppa Magician" would "agree" with the thesis of Lord Raglan, in his How Came Civilization, 19??, that CIVILIZATION HAD ITS ORIGIN IN TRIBAL RITUALS. This thesis is developed in "The Ritual Origin of Counting", A. Seidenberg.)