In the Jê myth of the origin of fire, of which the Suyá partake, the jaguar was once the sole owner of cooking fire while humans ate their food raw or warmed only by the sun. A boy, abandoned or lost, is taken in by the jaguar and raised in its house; from there humankind learns of the fire and carries it away, so that cooking and its attendant social order become human possessions. The jaguar is thereafter both benefactor and threatened predator, and its ambivalent gift marks the passage from a rawer to a properly human condition. The narrative is one of the most widely shared in Jê mythology and situates the Kĩsêdjê within that broad tradition.