forest products were predestined to serve as spirit impersonators as their life world, the forest, is only the tangible side of the world of the spirits. In pursuit of their livelihood they regularly transgress structural boundaries between village and forest. They live on the margins of the village, in the wasteland between forest and field, thus they are themselves, in a sense, liminal. That such liminal people should be mediums for the spirits seems entirely apt. Today communities like Nalike, Parava or Pambada who impersonate different kinds of and can no longer be characterised as tribal. They are mostly landless agricultural labourers in the wet season and spirit impersonators in the dry season. Worship Today feudal relations no longer obtain and thus former ruling families no longer hold any political or judicial office. But still the village demands that they sponsor their annual kōla or nēma to honour the village deity. The people believe that the neglect of the spirits will make their life miserable. Even though they may have changed, būta kōla and daiva nēma still serve secular as well as religious purposes. In fact the two cannot be separated in a world where the tangible is suffused with the intangible. As the cosmology underlying the pāḍdanas suggests, the very order of the human world and the order of the spirit world are interdependent. Būtas and daivas are not worshipped on a daily basis like mainstream Hindu gods. Their worship is restricted to annual ritual festivals, though daily pūjās may be conducted for the ritual objects, ornaments, and other paraphernalia of the būta. Unlike with the better-known Hindu gods of the purāṇic variety, būta worship is congregational. Secular function The secular function of the kōla or nēma has been described as a "sacred court of justice" where traditional (feudal) moral ideals are brought to bear on difficult real-life situations. Būta kōlas and daiva nēmas are assemblies of the entire village. Thus they become an occasion to resolve conflicts in the village. The royal daiva (rājan-daiva) rules over a former small kingdom or large feudal estate. He or she is mostly the family deity of rich land-owning patrons of the Baṇṭ caste whose position and power they reflect, confirm and renew. The relationship between the būtas, manor heads, and the villagers forms a transactional network which reaffirms the caste hierarchy and power relations in a village. The duty assigned to