The Maï are the divinities of the Araweté cosmos, immortal beings who withdrew from the earth during the inaugural cataclysm and now inhabit the sky, leaving humanity behind as 'the forsaken.' They are conceived simultaneously as the ideal image of the Araweté themselves and as ferocious cannibals, and the whole of Araweté religion turns on the relation between the living and these departed gods, mediated by the dead. The Maï exist in a great multiplicity of species, most bearing animal names, and their village occupies the lowest of the celestial tiers. Larger, stronger, and more vividly sexual than living people, their bodies blaze with the red of annatto and the sheen of black paint, a scintillating brilliance opposed to the grey opacity of mortal flesh. They possess the science of immortality, which they impose upon the souls that ascend to them: those souls are devoured, resurrected, and married into the ranks of the gods, made forever young.