One day the fishermen went out on the river again, but this time they took more with them in the canoe than their nets and baskets: they also took a few cases of beer, chairs and a table and even an entire banana tree.

They'd gone up the river a little while when they noticed something moving behind them in the water. A wave piled up into a gigantic snake. And then they saw the head of the gigantic snake with a wide, wide open mouth.

The fishermen tried to escape from the boat, but the snake loomed closer and closer.

What could they do?

They threw the cases of beer into the water and the snake swallowed the lot. They rowed and rowed, but the huge animal was still behind them. When it was again very close to them, they threw the chairs and the table into the water. The snake hissed and swallowed these too.

But what now?

They then threw in the bananas, the entire tree. But the gigantic snake swallowed these too.

Then one of the fishermen said: we no longer have any other choice, it has swallowed everything, the beer, the benches and the bananas. I'll jump in the water. He threw himself into the mouth of the gigantic snake and disappeared.

When he arrived inside the snake, he noticed that he could stand, in fact he could even walk, the snake was so big. And then he found the table and the beer. He set up the table and chairs straight away and sat himself down, opened up a beer and started to drink, there inside the snake. Everything was there, he just had to tidy it up a little, sit down and start drinking. And he had only just started when his friend turned up, the gigantic snake had also swallowed him.

He looked at his pal sitting there, drinking cold beer and eating bananas.

He was too late. Perhaps he should have been the first one to jump?

Told by Antonio Bentes Farias at the village green of Suruaca at Rio Tapajós, on 17th September 2000.