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The cultural depiction of cats and their relationship to humans is as old as civilization and stretches back over 9,500 years. Cats have figured in the history of many nations, are the subject of legend and are a favorite subject of artists and writers. Black cats have been associated with death and darkness.[1]
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Earliest history
The exact history of human interaction with cats is still somewhat vague. However, a shallow gravesite discovered in 1983 in Cyprus, dating to 7500 BC, during the Neolithic period, contains the skeleton of a human, buried ceremonially with stone tools, a lump of iron oxide, and a handful of seashells. In its own tiny grave 40 centimeters (18 inches) from the human grave was an eight-month-old cat, its body oriented in the same westward direction as the human skeleton. Cats are not native to Cyprus; they must have been brought over by boat. This is evidence that cats were being tamed just as humankind was establishing the first settlements in the part of the Middle East known as the Fertile Crescent.[2]
Ancient Egypt
Cats, known in ancient Egypt as the mau, played a large role in ancient Egyptian society. They were associated with the goddesses Isis and Bast.[1] Beginning as a wild, untamed species, cats were useful for keeping down vermin populations in the Egyptians' crops and harvests; through exposure to humans, the cat population became domesticated over time and learned to coexist with the human population.
Classical folklore
The Greek essayist Plutarch linked cats with cleanliness, noting that unnatural odours could make them mad.[3] Pliny linked them with lust,[4] and Aesop with deviousness and cunning.[5]
Middle Ages
Since many equated the Black Death with God's wrath against sin, and that cats were often considered in league with the Devil thanks to their aloof and independent nature, cats were killed in masses. Had this bias toward cats not existed, local rodent populations could have been kept down, lessening the spread of plague-infected fleas from host to host.[6]
Vikings used cats as rat catchers and companions.
A medieval King of Wales, Hywel Dda (the Good) passed legislation making it illegal to kill or harm a cat.[7]
In Medieval Ypres cats were used in the winter months to control the vermin infesting the wool stored in the upper floors of the Cloth Hall(Lakenhall). At the start of the spring warm-up, after the wool had been sold, the cats were tossed out of the belfry tower to the town square below - which supposedly symbolised "the killing of evil spirits". In today's Kattenstoet (Cat Parade) this was communted to the throwing toy cats from the belfry.
Renaissance
In the Renaissance, cats were often thought to be witches' familiars (for example, Greymalkin, the first witch's familiar in Macbeth's famous opening scene), and during festivities were sometimes burnt alive or thrown off tall buildings.
Europe
Folklore dating back to as early as 1607 tells that a cat will suffocate a newborn infant by putting its nose to the child's mouth, sucking the breath out of the infant.[5]
Black cats are generally held to be unlucky in the United States and Europe, and to portend good luck in the United Kingdom.[5] In the latter country, a black cat entering a house or ship is a good omen, and a sailor's wife should have a black cat for her husband's safety on the sea.[5] While elsewhere, it is unlucky if a black cat crosses one's path. White cats, bearing the colour of ghosts, are conversely held to be unlucky in the United Kingdom, while tortoiseshell cats are lucky.[5] It is common lore that cats have nine lives.[5] It is a tribute to their perceived durability, their occasional apparent lack of instinct for self-preservation, and their seeming ability to survive falls that would be fatal to other animals.
Japan
In Japan, there is the Maneki Neko, also referred to in English as the "good fortune" or "good luck" cat. It is usually a sitting cat with paw raised and bent. Legend in Japan has it that a cat waved a sword at a Japanese landlord, who was intrigued by this gesture and went towards it. A few seconds later a lightning bolt struck where the landlord had been previously standing. The landlord attributed his good fortune to the cat's fortuitous action. A symbol of good luck hence, it is most often seen in businesses to draw in money. In Japan, the flapping of the hand is a "come here" gesture, so the cat is beckoning customers.
Another Japanese Legend with cats is from Nekomata, when a cat has 13 years of life, it grows another tail and can stand up and speak in a human language.
Other
- Muezza (Arabic: مویزا) was the Prophet Muhammad's favorite cat. The most famous story about Muezza recounts how the call to prayer was given, and as Muhammad went to put on one of his robes, he found his cat sleeping on one of the sleeves. Instead of disturbing the cat he cut off the sleeve and let him sleep. When Muhammad returned Muezza awoke and bowed down to him, and in return Muhammad stroked him three times.[10]
- In Celtic Mythology, a Cat Sith is a fairy cat, cait being cat and sith or sidhe (both pronounced shee) being fairy.
- In Catholicism, the patron saint of cats is Saint Gertrude of Nivelles.
See also
Notes
- ^ a b Cirlot JE (1967) [1962]. A Dictionary of Symbols. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. p. 38.
- ^ Carlos A. Driscoll, Juliet Clutton-Brock, et. al. (June 2009). "The Evolution of House Cats; Genetic and archaeological findings hint that wildcats became house cats earlier--and in a different place--than previously thought". Scientific American. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-taming-of-the-cat&print=true.
- ^ Plutarch: Adv. on Marr. 44
- ^ Pliny 10, 83
- ^ a b c d e f de Vries, Ad (1976). Dictionary of Symbols and Imagery. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company. pp. 85–86. ISBN 0-7204-8021-3.
- ^ Feline geneticist traces origin of the cat
- ^ Taking Liberties - Star Items - Laws of Hywel Dda
- ^ a b Gernet, 48.
- ^ a b Gernet, 122–123.
- ^ Ban, Gu, Book of Han, 93, http://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E6%BC%A2%E6%9B%B8/%E5%8D%B7093
References
- Gernet, Jacques (1962). Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250–1276. Translated by H.M. Wright. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-0720-0.
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