Höimana'u'õ
Xavante · deity · Xavante traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Höimana'u'õ, 'the always-living', are the deathless creator-ancestors at the centre of Xavante discourses of immortality. They exist beyond ordinary mortality, associated with the east and with the jabiru stork, and they bestow dream-songs upon chosen dreamers. In the great masculine wai'a rite men seek contact with these and other spiritual powers to renew a standing pact and to gain the capacity to dream, to cure sickness, and to master rain and lightning. When their songs are danced in the plaza the past merges with the present and the immortals live again through the bodies of the performers. The immortals are one with the creators named romhõsi'wa and Parinai'a.
Domains
- immortality
- dream song
Powers
- grants dream-songs to the living
- dwells deathless in the east
- is encountered in the wai'a rite
Epithets
- höimana'u'õ — the always-livingL. R. Graham, Performing Dreams (1995) (secondary)
Relations
- ally: Romhõsi'waThe immortals are the creators.A. Shaker Eid, Os Senhores da Criação do Mundo Xavante (2012) (secondary)
- ally: Parinai'aL. R. Graham, Performing Dreams (1995) (secondary)
- companion: WarodiWarodi communes with and seeks to join the immortals.L. R. Graham, Performing Dreams (1995) (secondary)
Sources
- The höimana'u'õ are the 'always-living' immortal creator-ancestors who dwell beyond death, give dream-songs to Xavante dreamers, and are approached by men in the wai'a rite; through performance the living become the immortals.: L. R. Graham, Performing Dreams: Discourses of Immortality Among the Xavante of Central Brazil (University of Texas Press, 1995) (secondary)