3 ideas
In the Yabebirí River story, a man refuses to kill the stingrays in his stretch of river, and when tigers later attack him, the stingrays guard the ford with their stings to keep the tigers from crossing. The mechanism is that restraint shown when you hold power becomes a standing alliance that pays off only when you are the vulnerable one. Loyalty in the jungle is earned by what you chose not to do.
The flamingos, who once had white legs, want to dazzle the other guests at a snakes' ball, so they wear real coral-snake skins as stockings. When the snakes discover the trick, they bite the flamingos' legs, and the venom turns them red forever, so flamingos still stand in cold water to soothe the burn. The origin-tale form turns a moment of social pretension into a permanent bodily scar, which makes the cost of borrowed status literal and inherited.
A bee who refuses to gather nectar is shut out of the hive and must spend a cold night in a cave with a snake that means to eat her. She survives only by her wits, and she returns to work because the night has shown her what exclusion from collective labor costs. Seen this way, work in a harsh environment is not a moral ornament but the membership price that keeps an individual inside the group's protection.