4. Religion
The caste venerate the ordinary Hindu deities, and many of them have sects and return themselves as Vaishnavas, Saivas or Sāktas. In some places they are said to make a daily offering to their melting-furnace so that it may bring them in a profit. When a child has been born they make a sacrifice of a goat to Dūlha Deo, the marriage-god, on the following Dasahra festival, and the body of this must be eaten by the family only, no outsider being allowed to participate. In Hoshangābād it is stated that on the night before the Dasahra festival all the Sunārs assemble beside a river and hold a feast. Each of them is then believed to take an oath that he will not during the coming year disclose the amount of the alloy which a fellow-craftsman may mix with the precious metals. Any Sunār who violates this agreement is put out of caste. On the 15th day of Jeth (May) the village Sunār stops work for five days and worships his implements after washing them. He draws pictures of the goddess Devi on a piece of paper and goes round the village to affix them to the doors of his clients, receiving in return a small present.
The caste usually burn their dead and take the ashes to the Nerbudda or Ganges; those living to the south of the Nerbudda always stop at this river, because they think that if they crossed it to go to the Ganges, the Nerbudda would be offended at their not considering it good enough. If a man meets with a violent death and his body is lost, they construct a small image of him and burn this with all the proper ceremonies. Mourning is observed for ten or thirteen days, and the shrāddh ceremony is performed on the anniversary of a death, while the usual oblations are offered to the ancestors during the fortnight of Pitr Paksh in Kunwār (September).