4. Funeral rites
The caste bury the dead, placing the head to the north. They make libations to the spirits of their ancestors on the last day of Phāgun (February), and not during the fortnight of Pitripaksh in Kunwār (September) like other Hindu castes. They believe that the spirits of ancestors are reborn in children, and when a baby is born they put a grain of rice into a pot of water and then five other grains in the names of ancestors recently deceased. When one of these meets the grain representing the child they hold that the ancestor in question has been born again. The principal deity of the caste is Singbonga, the sun, and according to one of their stories the sun is female. They say that the sun and moon were two sisters, both of whom had children, but when the sun gave out great heat the moon was afraid that her children would be burnt up, so she hid them in a handi or earthen pot. When the sun missed her sister’s children she asked her where they were, and the moon replied that she had eaten them up; on which the sun also ate up her own children. But when night came the moon took her children out of the earthen pot and they spread out in the sky and became the stars. And when the sun saw this she was greatly angered and vowed that she would never look on the moon’s face again. And it is on this account that the moon is not seen in the daytime, and as the sun ate up all her children there are no stars during the day.