Jharkhand's Unique Wedding: Children Symbolically Married to Female Dog

• Jharkhand's Ho community performs a symbolic marriage of children whose first tooth emerges from the upper jaw to a female dog during the Baha festival.
• This ritual, seen in Jamshedpur's Old Ulidih, is believed to ward off planetary defects and ensure an auspicious future for the child.
• Community elders state it's a religious and cultural ritual, not a real marriage, passed down through generations to maintain identity and unity.
• While some view it as faith, others consider it superstition, as medical science sees upper tooth emergence as a normal physiological process.
• The ritual is celebrated like a festival, fostering social gathering and highlighting the blurring line between faith and superstition in modern India.