Baubo Or Babo
A mythical woman of Eleusis, whom Hesychius calls the nurse of Demeter; but the common story runs thus: -- on her wanderings in search of her daughter, Demeter came to Baubo, who received her hospitably, and offered her something to drink; but when the goddess, being too much under the influence of grief, refused to drink, Baubo made such a strange gesture, that the goddess smiled and accepted the draught. (Clem. Alex. Cohort. p. 17.) In the fragment of the Orphic hymn, which Clemens Alex. adds to this account, it is further related, that a boy of the name of Iacchus made an indecent gesture at the grief of Demeter. Arnobius (Adv. Gent. v. p. 175) repeats the story of Baubo from Clemens, but without mentioning the boy Iacchus, who is otherwise unknown, and, if meant for Dionysus, is out of place here.
The different stories concerning the reception of Demeter at Eleusis seem all to be inventions of later times, coined for the purpose of giving a mythical origin to the jokes in which the women used to indulge at the festival of this goddess. [See also Ascalabus and Ascalaphus, No. 2.]
From Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and MythologyFrom The Homeric Hymns, by Andrew Lang
The Christian Fathers, Clemens of Alexandria at least, make this a part of their attack on the Mysteries; but it may be said that they were prejudiced or misinformed. {87a} But, says M. Foucart, an inscription has been found in Paros, wherein there is a dedication to Hera, Demeter Thesmophoros, Korê, and Babo, or Baubo. Again, two authors of the fourth century, Palæphatus and Asclepiades, cite the Dusaules and Baubo legend.
Now the indecent gesture of Baubo was part of the comic or obscene folk-lore of contempt in Egypt, and so M. Foucart thinks that it was borrowed from Egypt with the Demeter legend. Can Isocrates have referred to this good office?—the amusing of Demeter by an obscene gesture? If he did, such gestures as Baubo’s are as widely diffused as any other piece of folk-lore. In the centre of p. 88the Australian desert Mr. Carnegie saw a native make a derisive gesture which he thought had only been known to English schoolboys.
