Ambat's elder brothers
Malekula · demigod · Malekula traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
The Ambat cycle is a brother-cycle: five siblings who all carry the name Ambat and are set apart only by age. The elder brothers are lightly individuated in the tales, appearing as a company that fishes, voyages and builds alongside the hero, and at other times as rivals who envy his cleverness and covet his wife or his catch. Their scheming supplies much of the movement of the myths, while the hero's escape from their designs, or from the ogress into whose hands their folly delivers him, confirms his pre-eminence. Sources present the brothers collectively more than singly, and no separate proper names distinguish them.
Domains
- culture heroism
- kinship rivalry
Powers
- envies and rivals the culture-hero
- accompanies and aids the hero
Relations
- sibling: AmbatBrother to the culture-hero within the band of five.A. B. Deacon, Malekula (1934), pp. 618-641 (secondary)
Sources
- The Ambat cycle turns on five brothers who all bear the name Ambat and are distinguished by seniority; the elder brothers act by turns as companions and as envious rivals of the youngest and cleverest.: A. B. Deacon, Malekula: A Vanishing People in the New Hebrides (1934), pp. 618-641 (secondary)