Bara Deo, also called Bura Deo or Budha Deo, 'the Great' or 'Old God', is the ancient tribal high god of the Baiga, whom they share in name with the Gond. He dwells in the sal or saj tree, worshipped once a year around May, and was once the pre-eminent deity of the pantheon, closely bound to the practice of bewar shifting cultivation. Elwin and later observers record that as the colonial and post-colonial state curtailed bewar, the rites attaching to Bara Deo withered and he was reduced from tribal high god to a household deity, a decline the Baiga themselves lament as a loss of their old religion.