"Daowa-maad. We hunt, we grow, we live. Life is simple — we do."

— Morning Riser

"Daowa-maadthu ... Fate is off-center, the wheel of life is cracked, the wagon will hit a rock, jolt hard, and fall apart for all of us - eventually."

— Forthencho

"We play out our parts in Living Time and accept all that life brings, and all that it takes away. So we support the Mantle: Daowa maadthu."

— Ur-Didact

Daowa-maad, historically referred to as daowa-maadthu, was an ancient human philosophy. The term itself meant the "roll and tug of the universe" and was also known as the "mantra of the broken wheel". Translated into the dialect spoken by Forerunner Builders, it meant roughly "You fall as your stresses crack you." It was an ancient teaching, originating from the time of early humanity's spacefaring era and still remembered and followed by humanity's subdued remnants as of Chakas's generation ten thousand years later.

The Didact cited the term in his last moments spent with the Librarian before his first exile in a Cryptum, equating it with the Mantle and its duty to observe the flow of Living Time; the Librarian was surprised by her husband, known for his hostility toward humanity, using such a phrase. The Forerunner Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting learned the term from his ancilla, and the fact he knew it impressed Chakas and Riser, his two human guides on Erde-Tyrene.

List of appearances

• Halo: Cryptum (First appearance)
• Halo: Primordium
• Halo: Silentium