Ibu Pertiwi (English: Mother Prithvi or Mother Earth)[1] is a national personification of Indonesia, the allegory of Tanah Air (Indonesian: land and water), the Indonesian motherland. Since prehistoric times, the tribes of the Indonesian archipelago often revered earth and nature spirits as a life giving mother, a female deity of nature. After the adoption of Hinduism in the early first millennium, this mother figure was identified with Prithvi, the Hindu mother goddess of the earth, who was thus given the name "Pertiwi".[citation needed]