The Mochis have adopted the customs of the higher Hindu castes. A
man may not take a wife from his own _gotra_, his mother's _gotra_ or
from a family into which a girl from his own family has married. They
usually marry their daughters in childhood and employ Brahmans in
their ceremonies, and no degradation attaches to these latter for
serving as their priests. In minor domestic ceremonies for which the
Brahman is not engaged his place is taken by a relative, who is called
_sawasa_, and is either the sister's husband, daughter's husband,
or father's sister's husband, of the head of the family. They permit
widow-remarriage and divorce, and in the southern Districts effect
a divorce by laying a pestle between the wife and husband. They burn
their dead and observe mourning for the usual period. After a death
they will not again put on a coloured head-cloth until some relative
sets it on their heads for the first time on the expiry of the period
of mourning. They revere the ordinary Hindu deities, and like the
Chamars they have a family god, known as Mair, whose representation
in the shape of a lump of clay is enshrined within the house and
worshipped at marriages and deaths. In Saugor he is said to be the
collective representative of the spirits of their ancestors. In some
localities they eat flesh and drink liquor, but in others abstain from
both. Among the Hindus the Mochis rank considerably higher than the
Chamars; their touch does not defile and they are permitted to enter
temples and take part in religious ceremonies. The name of a Saugor
Mochi is remembered who became a good drawer and painter and was
held in much esteem at the Peshwa's court. In northern India about
half the Mochis are Muhammadans, but in the Central Provinces they
are all Hindus.