The ta'o we is the earthbound remainder of the dead, the specter that stays with the corpse and the world of the forest while the celestial soul rises to the gods. Associated with the decaying body and drawn toward the Añĩ, it lingers to trouble the living during the period of decomposition, then withdraws to the natal village of the deceased, where at last it dissolves. It is the shadow-half of the Araweté afterlife, the portion of the person that does not become divine but simply fades from the earth, the necessary counterweight to the ĩ's ascent into immortality.