worshipping sacred groves, and the important role in their traditions of the Sāl tree, whose flowering marks the beginning of their New Year and Flower Feast festivals: the Santal tribe worship the Sāl tree and gather to make communal decisions under them Sāl trees. The importance of the tree spirits called s and s in Pali (s and s in Sanskrit) in early Buddhist texts is an attestation of the worship of these beings done at s. The worship of s and s, which was of pre-Indo-Aryan autochthonous origin, was prevalent in the Greater Magadha region. Serpent worship The king Mucalinda, who in Buddhist mythology protected the Buddha during a storm under a mucalinda tree, was a both snake- and a tree-deity, thus alluding to the practice of serpent worship among the Shakyas, which originated from among the pre-Indo-Aryan Tibeto-Burman populations of northern South Asia. Marriage customs Another reflection of non-Indo-Aryan cultural practices of the Shakyas was the practice of sibling marriages among their ruling clans, which was forbidden among peoples, and was a practice of social demarcation and of maintaining power within a smaller sub-group of the Shakya clan, and was therefore not permitted among the lower classes of the Shakya. Funerary customs The cremation rituals of the Shakyas which were performed for the funeral of the Buddha as described by Buddhist texts involved wrapping his body in 500 layers of cloth, placing it in an iron vat full of oil as a mark of honour, and then covering it with another iron pot before being cremated. These rites originated from the pre-Indo-Aryan autochthonous populations of the eastern Gangetic plains, as were the practices such as honouring the Buddha's body with singing, dancing, and music, as well as placing his bones in a golden urn, the veneration of these remains and their burial in a round which possessed a central mast, flags, pennants, and parasols at a public crossroads, which were rituals that were performed by the pre-Indo-Aryan populations for their greater rulers. Descent claims Tharu people of Tarai region of India and Nepal claim descent from Sakya. Significant population of Newars of Kathmandu valley in Nepal use the surname Shakya and also claim to be the descendants of the Shakya clan with titles such as Śākyavamsa (of the Shakya lineage) having been used in the past. According to Hmannan Yazawin, first published in 1823, the legendary king Abhiyaza,