how to create a table using REST API's

REST Table API has ability to "create" rows in an existing table, but I don't see any REST API to create a table. For example, if I'd like to clone the existing "incident" table to a new "incident2" empty table (not currently existing), I can read the sys_db_object entry for "incident" using Table API, change the name to "incident2", and attempt to POST the modified record creating "incident2" back to sys_db_object using Table API. This fails with code "forbidden".  If it worked, I'd be able to read sys_dictionary records for "incident", change the name to "incident2", and try POSTing back to sys_dictionary. I have not tried that, but it probably also fails with "forbidden". If it worked, "incident2" would have the same fields (elements) in sys_dictionary as "incident" (thus "cloning" the table).

Once I figure out how to clone an existing table to a new name, I would then like to figure out how to create an Import Set API Staging table that is suitable to stage rows for a particular Target table, again using REST API's. However, if I can't solve an easier exercise like "how to clone a  table", that would also seem to be unattainable via REST API.