The following account of the tribal religion is abridged from Father
Dehon's full and interesting description:
"The Oraons worship a supreme god who is known as Dharmes; him they
invoke in their greatest difficulties when recourse to the village
priests and magicians has proved useless. Then they turn to Dharmes
and say, 'Now we have tried everything, but we have still you who can
help us.' They sacrifice to him a white cock. They think that god is
too good to punish them, and that they are not answerable to him in any
way for their conduct; they believe that everybody will be treated in
the same way in the other world. There is no hell for them or place
of punishment, but everybody will go to _merkha_ or heaven. The Red
Indians speak of the happy hunting-grounds and the Oraons imagine
something like the happy ploughing-grounds, where everybody will have
plenty of land, plenty of bullocks to plough it with, and plenty of
rice-beer to drink after his labour. They look on god as a big zamindar
or landowner, who does nothing himself, but keeps a _chaprasi_ as an
agent or debt-collector; and they conceive the latter as having all
the defects so common to his profession. Baranda, the _chaprasi_,
exacts tribute from them mercilessly, not exactly out of zeal for
the service of his master, but out of greed for his _talbana_ or
perquisites. When making a sacrifice to Dharmes they pray: 'O god,
from to-day do not send any more your _chaprasi_ to punish us. You
see we have paid our respects to you, and we are going to give him
his _dasturi_ (tip).'