In the Deccan after the buffalo is killed the Mahars rush on the carcase and each one secures a piece of the flesh.

This done they go in procession round the walls, calling on the spirits and demons, and asking them to accept the pieces of meat as offerings, which are then thrown to them backwards over the wall.

[216] The buffalo is now looked upon in the light of a scape-goat, but the procedure described above cannot be satisfactorily explained on the scape-goat theory, and would appear clearly to have been substituted for the former eating of the flesh.

In the Maratha Districts the lower castes have a periodical sacrifice of a pig to the sun; they eat the flesh of the pig together, and even the Panwar Rajputs of the Waringanga Valley join in the sacrifice and will allow the impure caste of Mahars to enter their houses and eat of this sacrifice with them, though at other times the entry of a Mahar would defile a Panwar's house.

[217] The pig is sacrificed either as the animal which now mainly injures the crops or because it was the principal sacrificial animal of the non-Aryan tribes, or from a combination of both reasons.