This is about the last post I have from Gimbutas. Since I can't find a good way to edit what she wrote without diminishing its quality, I'll just quote her from The Slavs by Marija Gimbutas (1971 from Praeger Publishers). A truly archaic female divinity is the Moist Mother Earth (Mati syra zemlja). The peasants of Volynia and the Byelorussian woodlands believed that in spring it was a very grave sin to strike the earth with anything before 25 March-because during that time the earth is pregnant. The Russians, similarly, forbad ploughing and digging on various holidays including Memorial Day and Assumption Day-for these were the earth's name~day-and demanded that if a person spat on the ground he must beg the Earth's pardon. For centuries, Slav peasants settled disputes over landed property by calling the Earth to witness the justice of their claims. Marriages were confirmed by swallowing a lump of earth (nineteenth century, Pskov area). Oaths were taken by swallowing a lump of earth (c. 1870, Orel area), or by putting it on one's head. Crop predictions were made in certain parts of Russia by digging a small hole in the ground and listening to what the Earth said: a sound like a full sleigh meant a good crop; that of an empty sleigh, a poor one.

The festival of Moist Mother Earth was Kupala; it took its name from the mass bathing (kupati 'to bathe') which, along with prayers at springs, marked the observance. But it was primarily a celebration of the summer solstice, and featured great bonfires. The straw idol of Kupala was attired like a woman. During the festival, it was placed under a tree which had been cut down and stuck into the ground. Among the Baltic Slavs, the sacred tree was the birch, cut and prepared by women only, with all the branches stripped off; the crown alone was left, and that was hung with garlands and flowers. Sacrifices took place by it. This was a representation of the Tree linking Heaven and Earth."

I wonder, aside from the Slavs and Celts, how many other offshoot Indo-European peoples held springs to be sacred places.

Moist Mother Earth sounds to me like a goddess which might gain a great following among the women here at AW.