Damatura, also given as Damater or Damatira, is an indigenous earth-mother of the Messapii. Her name is most often analysed as a compound of an 'earth' element and a 'mother' element, structurally parallel to the Illyrian sky-father Deipaturos, and the Indo-Europeanist M. L. West has argued that the puzzling first element of the Greek goddess Demeter (Dāmā́tēr) is best explained as a borrowing from this Messapic-Illyrian goddess rather than the reverse. Whether Damatura is the source of, a cognate of, or independent from Greek Demeter remains debated, but her status as a genuine indigenous Messapic earth-and-fertility goddess is well established in the scholarship on the Messapic theonyms.