Jawnomicon

Qat

Also called Quat, Vui.

Qat is the culture hero of the Banks Islands, a vui or spirit-being who makes the first people, day, and much else, working against the constant interference of eleven brothers who share his name.

At a glance

Tradition
Melanesian mythology
Region
Melanesia (place of origin)
Trait family
The Tricksters

Near this figure

and 8 more

Traits

Read from the figure's description, which a model wrote. Open "why" for the sentence a trait came from.

Behaviour

  • Culture bringer teaches crafts
    why

    He is a vui — a being of the spirit order rather than a god in a pantheon sense — and he is credited with making the first human beings by carving them from wood and animating them, with obtaining night from a distant source so that the world could have alternation instead of perpetual daylight, and with a range of other establishing acts. His stories are structured by opposition from within the family.

  • Trickster outwits larger foes
    why

    He has eleven brothers, all bearing his name with a distinguishing addition, and they spend the cycle attempting to kill him out of envy — trapping him, felling trees on him, luring him into holes — and being outwitted each time.

Utility powers

  • Creation
    why

    He is a vui — a being of the spirit order rather than a god in a pantheon sense — and he is credited with making the first human beings by carving them from wood and animating them, with obtaining night from a distant source so that the world could have alternation instead of perpetual daylight, and with a range of other establishing acts. His stories are structured by opposition from within the family.

  • Trickery and cunning
    why

    A separate strand pits him against a formidable adversary sometimes given as another vui, whom he defeats by trickery.

Roles

Judged from the works' own entries, not from the description. Carries: the figure holds the role. Meets: the role is in its stories, held by something it meets.