The state also accommodated the powerful animist traditions, as shown in the official spirit ("nat") propitiation ceremonies, and in the court's sponsorship of an elaborate "nat" pantheon that sought to assimilate local deities and persons of prowess to a more unified cultus. The Burmans may have derived the concept of an official pantheon from Mon tradition. Likewise, the early Pagan court worshiped snakes ("nagas") venerated in pre-Buddhist times. To judge by 14th-century patterns, sacrifices to nat spirits mediated by shamans, were still a central village ritual. As elsewhere in Southeast Asia, homosexuals or transvestites (who already inhabited two "incompatible" realms) as well as women with appropriate powers provided a shamanic bridge from the human world to that of the spirits.