Jaguars

A man went fishing with his wife. He climbed a tree to capture some parakeets that he threw down to his mate. But she ate them. "Why are you eating parakeets?" he asked. Once he came down, she sliced through his neck with a gnash of her teeth. When she returned to the village, her children ran up to her to see what she had brought back. She showed them the head of their father, and claimed that it was an armadillo's head. That night, she ate her children, and went into the bush. She had changed into a jaguar. Jaguars are women.

Métraux, A. Myths and Tales of the Matako Indians, Ethnological Studies, 9, Goteborg, 1939. cited in C. Lévi Strauss, Le Cru et le Cuit