Karõ is the Apinayé shadow-soul, the part of a person that survives the death of the body. Departing at death, the karõ travels to the village of the dead, yet it may linger about the settlement and gardens, showing itself at night and threatening to draw the grieving after it; the collective dead are the mekarõ. Belief in the karõ underlies Apinayé mourning practice and the caution the living observe toward recently deceased kin. As a category-being it stands outside the genealogies of the culture-heroes, one of the enduring powers of the Apinayé cosmos rather than a personage of a single tale.