La vieja egoísta y el fuego

This work attempts to explain a Chacobo myth (Pano). The narrative evidences a symbolic passage from a "nature" state to a "culture" state, and the meaning of the myth is traced in practices and representations belonging to three different "codes": a) relating to food (ideas about consumption or how cannibalism is treated), b) relating to the worldview (cosmological and theophanic organisation, and mythical narrive), and c) relating to social organisation (kinship, alliance, onomastics, and reciprocity). Finally, an anthropological understanding of the Chacobo conception of "humanity" is derived from the myth.