Beside all of these is kept a cane rod. The senior members of the family sleeps in the room of the deurhar, of the family deity, which is always situated at the eastern corner of the house. Any kind of religious activity or ritual in the family is always conducted in the name of the senior member of the family. As in most parts of the Terai the Tharu villages also have a village shrine or barham in the middle of their village. Bhiunhar consists of several wooden carved boards erected on the ground near a tree, whereas barham is a small mud platform.
People worship and put offerings in the shrine when the inmates of the village fall ill.
Both kinds of shrine are worshipped in March and in August. All the villagers contribute food and cash to purchase a chicken, a goat, or a pig as a sacrifice for such occasions. The Tharu also worship Shanker, Parvati, Durga, and Satya Narayan among other deities. Almost all the Tharus living in the east districts of Sarlahi, Mahottari, Saptari, and Morang cremate their dead, while most of those in the middle and in the western districts of Chitwan, Dandeukhurl, Kailali and Kanchanpur, Banke, and Bardia bury them. Those who cremate take the corpse to a riverside, wash it clean with water and smear it with butter before they burn it down to ashes.