Mbud, the Moon, is the junior culture-hero and foil of the Sun. Where the Sun acts wisely, the Moon covets, imitates and fails, and it is through his blunders that imperfection enters the world. In the painting contest he is left with the black of genipap; in the argument over the fate of the dead he insists that people, once dead, should stay dead, and so becomes the author of mortality. Sources differ on the precise transcription of his Apinayé name, but agree on his role as the improvident partner whose errors are woven into the fabric of ordinary human life.