Mancunima: the Hero with no Character

Macunaíma dragged himself back to the now-deserted tapera. He was very upset cause he couldn't comprehend the silence. He was good as dead with no one to mourn him, utterly abandoned. His brothers had gone away transformed into the left head of the ruxama-vulture and there weren't even any girls around for folks to find. The silence started whispering along the riverbanks of the Uraricoera. Just so tedious! And most of all, oh! . just so lazy! . . .

Macunaíma was obliged to abandon the tapera whose last remaining wall, woven from catolé palm fronds, was falling down. But the impaludism didn't give him the gumption to build even a little papiri. He'd brought his hammock up to a rise near a rock that had money buried underneath. He strung the hammock between two leafy cashew trees and didn't leave it for days on end sleeping irritably and munching on the fruit. Just so lonesome! Even his bright-dappled retinue had dissolved. Quicker than the eye an ajuru-catinga parrot zipped past in a hurry. The other parrots asked their kin where he was headed.