The ceremony would be a relic of participation in the clan sacrifice when the bride would in the first place drink the blood of the totem animal or tribal god with the bridegroom in sign of her admission to his clan and afterwards be marked with the blood as a substitute.

This smear of vermilion a married woman always continues to wear as a sign of her state, unless she wears pink powder or a spangle as a substitute.

[167] Where this pink powder _( kunku)_ or spangles are used they must always be given by the bridegroom to the bride as part of the _Sohag_ or trousseau.

At a Bhaina wedding the bride's father makes an image in clay of the bird or animal of the groom's sept and places it beside the marriage-post.

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