separate personalities, and in the latter case the cult was sometimes
far extended. Still more popular was the cult of grouped goddesses. Of
these the _Matres_, like some individual goddesses, were probably early
Earth-mothers, and since the primitive fertility-cults included all that
might then be summed up as "civilisation," such goddesses had already
many functions, and might the more readily become divinities of special
crafts or even of war. Many individual goddesses are known only by their
names, and were of a purely local character.[119] Some local goddesses
with different names but similar functions are equated with the same
Roman goddess; others were never so equated.

The Celtic Minerva, or the goddesses equated with her, "taught the
elements of industry and the arts,"[120] and is thus the equivalent of
the Irish Brigit. Her functions are in keeping with the position of
woman as the first civiliser--discovering agriculture, spinning, the art
of pottery, etc. During this period goddesses were chiefly worshipped,
and though the Celts had long outgrown this primitive stage, such
culture-goddesses still retained their importance. A goddess equated
with Minerva in Southern France and Britain is Belisama, perhaps from
_qval_, "to burn" or "shine."[121] Hence she may have been associated
with a cult of fire, like Brigit and like another goddess Sul, equated
with Minerva at Bath and in Hesse, and in whose temple perpetual fires
burned.[122] She was also a goddess of hot springs. Belisama gave her
name to the Mersey,[123] and many goddesses in Celtic myth are
associated with rivers.

Some war-goddesses are associated with Mars--Nemetona (in Britain and
Germany), perhaps the same as the Irish Nemon, and Cathubodua, identical
with the Irish war-goddess Badb-catha, "battle-crow," who tore the
bodies of the slain.[124] Another goddess Andrasta, "invincible,"
perhaps the same as the Andarta of the Voconces, was worshipped by the
people of Boudicca with human sacrifices, like the native Bellona of the
Scordisci.[125]

A goddess of the chase was identified with Artemis in Galatia, where she
had a priestess Camma, and also in the west. At the feast of the
Galatian goddess dogs were crowned with flowers, her worshippers feasted
and a sacrifice was made to her, feast and sacrifice being provided out
of money laid aside for every animal taken in the chase.[126] Other
goddesses were equated with Diana, and one of her statues wa