The Earth, teŋgaan, is the great female power of Dagara religion and, unlike the withdrawn creator, is intimately present and constantly worshipped. She owns the land, gives fertility to soil and womb alike, and enforces a moral order whose gravest breaches are the shedding of blood and the pollution of the ground, offences that must be cleansed at her shrine. Each Dagara settlement is founded upon an earth-shrine, a grove, stone or pool tended by the tengansob or tindana, who alone sacrifices to the Earth and mediates disputes over land; the presence of such a shrine is the very mark of Dagara country. In the Bagre recitations the Earth is named goddess and Mother of the Bagre, and it is to her that daily libation is poured. Sources sometimes render her local name as Tengbane and differ on how sharply the deity is distinguished from the shrine that embodies her.