Note 29 — Chapter III · TOTEMISM AND FETISHISM.
Reading edition
One of the best illustrations of this form of totemism is that of the Devak or family guardian gods of Berâr and Bombay. Before concluding an alliance, the Kunbi and other Berâr tribes look to the Devak, which literally means the deity worshipped at marriage ceremonies; the fact being that certain families hold in honour particular trees and plants, and at the marriage ceremony branches of these trees are set up in the house. It is said that a betrothal, in every other respect irreproachable, will be broken off if the two houses are discovered to pay honour to the same tree, in other words if they worship the same family totem and hence must belong to one and the same endogamous group.29