Raven, Qwaxw, is the trickster-transformer of Nuxalk narrative, the double-natured culture hero common across the Northwest Coast. In his benevolent aspect he helps humankind, ordering and reshaping the world and securing goods for the people; in his trickster aspect his gluttony and thoughtless scheming carry him from one misadventure to the next, so that many of his stories turn on the trouble his own appetite makes for him. He operates apart from the ordered household of the upper world, a free and appetitive shaper whose deeds account for many features of the living world.