Mancunima: the Hero with no Character

Jiguê was a big dummy and the next day he showed up pulling a young woman by the hand. She was his new gal and her name was Iriqui. She kept a live rat hidden in her mass of hair and was always getting dolled up. She painted her face with araraúba and jenipapo and each morning she'd rub açaí berry on her lips making them all purple. Next she'd dab some bilimbi fruit over it and her lips would turn all scarlet. Then Iriqui would wrap herself in a striped cotton shawl dyed black with acariúba and green with tatajuba and scent her hair with essence of umiri, she was lovely.

Well now, after everyone had eaten Macunaíma's tapir, famine struck the mocambo. As for hunting, nobody caught any more game, not even a single armadillo turned up! and seeing as Maanape had killed a river dolphin for them to eat, the cunauaru toad called Maraguigana, Father of the Dolphin, was angered. He sent a flood and the cornfield rotted. They ate up everything, even the stale rinds ran out and the bonfire that burned night and day didn't roast a thing, nossir, all it did was ease the chill that had fallen. There wasn't even a scrap of jerky for folks to grill.