The bridegroom worships the image, lighting a sacrificial fire before it, and offers to it the vermilion which he afterwards smears on the forehead of the bride.

Women are often tattooed with representations of their totem animal, and men swear by it as their most sacred oath.

A similar respect is paid to the inanimate objects after which certain septs are named.

Thus members of the Gawad or cowdung clan will not burn cowdung cakes for fuel; and those of the Mircha clan do not use chillies.

One clan is named after the sun, and when an eclipse occurs they perform the same formal rites of mourning as others do on the death of their totem animal.