Anthropologists claim that many of the Dongba rituals show strong influences from the Bön religion, and are not native in origin. Bön lamas are believed to have settled among the Nashi as farmers, and to have begun to practise exorcisms as a way of earning a little money on the side; they were thus in competition with the native ritual specialists, locally known as "Llü-bu", or "Ssan-nyi". This is disputed, largely because the Bon religion is so adulterated by Tibetan Buddhism today that it is difficult to find pure and authentic practitioners to use as a basis for comparison.