Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present the salt uses and salt-related beliefs of the population living on the Atacama Plateau, specifically in the Salar de Atacama. To do so, we propose an ethnographic survey of practices and emotions that records and analyzes a set of culturally relevant social relationships. These relationships unfold around salt in different times and ways of life: the pastoral, agricultural and mining lifestyles. The latter has served as the backdrop for the last century and remains so today.