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.