Island-Shaper
Ni Vanuatu · demigod · mythic · Recorded classification
Classed as demigod (culture-hero) per the brief, though Codrington calls him a vui (spirit-being); foregrounded as a Vanuatu culture-hero. His eleven brothers are each called Tagaro (the Wise, the Fool, etc.), linking this cycle to the wider Tagaro tradition. The 'red stone' is volcanic glass (obsidian), an attested implement; explicitly NOT a modern coinage.
Domains
- creation
- culture and custom
Powers
- carves the first men and women from wood and gives them life
- buys night and cuts the first dawn with a red stone
- Buy night and cut the first dawn
Epithets
- Qat The creator-trickster hero of the Banks Islands who made men, day and night, and the first canoeR. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (secondary)
- Ikpat / Iqet (the Mota title-form of) QatR. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (1891) (primary)
Relations
- companion: Spider SpiritMarawa the Spider, first a rival at the canoe-building, became Qat's fast friend and rescuer.R.H. Codrington, The Melanesians: Studies in their Anthropology and Folk-Lore (1891) (secondary)
Sources
- Qat is the principal culture-hero of the Banks Islands of northern Vanuatu, credited with shaping the world, carving the first humans, originating night and dawn, marriage rules and death, with eleven brothers all named Tagaro and the spider-spirit Marawa as helper.: Codrington, R.H. The Melanesians: Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore (1891), ch. 10 (primary)