God and Goddesses evolve out of our faith. So do the practices and rituals around them. While traditionally GSBs worship the various forms of main stream Vedic deities, we also worship pre-Vedic deities. These deities are usually the local gods/goddesses believed to be protectors of the settlement ;protecting them from nature’s calamities like floods, droughts or helping address family problems, childlessness and diseases. They are the gramdevatas. Some well known local deities go by the name of Betal, Vetaal, Barmo, Vagro and Mariamma.
These deities are given a personality of their own. Their looks are usually fierce and scary. They have multiple weapons. The offerings for them are usually one which is exactly opposite to the Puranic Gods – they are animal sacrifices, toddy and in some case cigars. In more established temples, the animal sacrifices have been replaced by pumpkin. Some of them have wooden animals next to them which according to legends they use to go around the village at night to ensure everything is alright. They are usually not worshipped by the Brahmins.
These deities are usually a sole authority in their locality and feudal in nature. This can be related to something I read recently. During the Portuguese Inquisition, a lot of GSB families escaped with the idols of their local Gods to save them from destruction. They hoped to establish these idols in the new place they would settle in. But in some areas, while the locals welcomed these migrants to settle they were clear the Gods could not stay. The locals were worried that establishing a new God in the village might incur the wrath of the existing local God. And so some of these migrants who had taken this arduos journey to save the Gods had to actually immerse them in the waters.
In later years, these local deities have been integrated into the mainstream Hinduism by associating them with local Gods.