The Tianawa are the celestial gods of the Piaroa beyond, dwelling in the sky-world above the ordinary earth. They are the keepers of sickness and of the curing songs, and it is to them that the Piaroa shaman-singer ascends in the trance opened by the snuff yopo and the vine caapi, travelling by his acquired visionary sight (märipa) to obtain the chants by which disease is turned back and to treat with the powers that send it. In this celestial commerce the hallucinogen cosmology of the creator-time is renewed in the ongoing work of healing. The literature names and enumerates these gods of the sky variously, but their office as lords of disease and song is consistent.