Cats

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CATS

CATS seem to be surrounded by a special power. Their graceful movements, their liveliness at night, and their inaudible steps as well as their independent spirit have enchanted poets and painters and storytellers in many cultures, but these very traits account also for the aversion many people have had to them. Throughout history, cats have rarely been regarded with indifference; they have generally been considered either sacred or demonic. The earliest known center of their veneration, and probably also of their domestication, was ancient Egypt, where they are documented from 1600 bce onward. Bast, a popular goddess of pleasure, was represented with a cat's head. Numerous sacred cats lived around her sanctuary in Bubastis, and thousands of mummified cats have been found in that area.

Other goddesses with feline attributes have also been connected with cats. In a Roman myth, Diana assumes the form of a cat, and in Germanic mythology, Freyja's carriage is drawn by cats. In Bengali Hinduism, Śaṣṭi rides or stands on a (usually black) cat. Should a mother be disrespectful to the goddess, a cat will kill her children; such revenge can be averted by pouring sour milk over a black cat and licking it off.

Cats are frequently perceived as malevolent creatures. The idea that a cat can "suck the breath" of sleeping children (i.e., suffocate them) is widely prevalent, and in some myths the cat is represented even as a bloodsucking ogre. Some people think that to swallow a cat's hair will result in tuberculosis. But a cat's tooth can serve as a talisman, for cats have not only "nine lives" but supernatural powers. In Ireland, for example, it is thought that the devil can assume the form of a cat; in China, it is believed that cats can see spirits at night and that a dead cat can turn into a demon. In many places it is thought that cats can sense the presence of death, that they can smell the guiding spirit come to conduct away the departing soul. Because of their supernatural abilities, cats are connected with witches and sorcerers; in fact, they are—especially black ones—typical familiars of witches. In medieval Europe, every owner of such an animal was therefore suspect.

As an agent of the supernatural, the cat became a sacrificial animal in some cultures. In medieval Europe, cats were killed as an expiation in times of plague or were thrown into the Saint John's fire at the summer solstice. As late as the mid-seventeenth century, in the ceremony of the Taigheirm in the West Highlands of Scotland, black cats were roasted on spits to raise the infernal spirits. In Japan, however, as in ancient Egypt and other cultures, it has been thought inadvisable to kill a cat, owing to its special power. Such an act would bring misfortune, or would have to be atoned for (in Muslim Bengal, with five pounds of salt).

In European lore, cats can function as house goblins and are also counted among the shapeshifters; they can assume enormous proportions in case of danger or in order to rescue their benefactor from equally enormous rats. Thus their role can be beneficial as well: friendly cat demons can produce gold and treasures for those who have been kind to them, and cats—especially tricolored cats (which are believed to be always female)—can protect a house from fire and guarantee marital happiness.

In many cultures it is considered a bad omen to see a cat, especially a black one, when leaving a house; likewise, to dream of a black cat, or to cross its path, means misfortune. But the black cat's body serves both medical and magical purposes; a meal of cat's brains may arouse love in someone, or strengthen a man's sexual power, or restore sight. Pulverized cat's gall rubbed into the eyes enables one to see at night, or to see jinn. Certain parts of a black cat, prepared with other ingredients, can make a person invisible.

The behavior of cats is also often regarded as an omen. In Germany, if a cat washes itself, a guest will come. In China, the arrival of a strange cat in a house portends poverty, because that cat is believed to have a premonition that many mice will come to live in that house. The cat's sensitivity to atmospheric changes has led, in many places, to belief that it can predict—or, indeed, is responsible for—the weather. In Turkey, if a cat purrs loudly, a severe winter is impending; in England, if a cat sits with its back to the fire, there will be frost. In Java and Sumatra, bathing two cats or throwing one into a river can bring rain.

Folklore often talks about the hypocritical cat. "The cat weeps at the mouse's death," according to a Chinese proverb. The story of the "repentant" cat that appears as a pious ascetic in order to cheat the mice has been told from ancient Egypt to modern Mongolia, and it occurs frequently in Persian literature (see ʿUbayd-i Za-kānī's little epic Mouse and Cat from the fourteenth century). Hence, in Persian and Ottoman Turkish urban poetry, the term cat is sometimes used to characterize a sly person of high rank. The friendship of a cat with a mouse or other weaker animal, or with its archenemy the dog, lasts only so long as both are in danger, as Ka-līlah wa-Dimnah (The fables of Bidpai) tells us; once safe, the cat usually eats the mouse. This "hypocrisy" has been expressed in many proverbs that warn against trusting the cat, which may first lick one's hand and then scratch it. The motto of the Mackintosh clan of Scotland is "Touch not a cat but [i.e., without] a glove."

Nevertheless, the cat has many positive aspects. In ancient Rome, the cat was a symbol of liberty, for no animal has so independent a spirit or is so resistant to restraint as a cat. In China, the association of the sign for cat, mao, with that for the number eighty has made the cat a symbol of long life.

In Islamic tradition, the cat is born in Noah's ark from the lioness's sneeze, or else she is the lion's, or tiger's, aunt who teaches him various tricks but withholds the last one, that is, how to climb a tree. The positive evaluation of cats in the Islamic world is due to the prophet Muḥammad's fondness for cats. Because he stroked the back of a cat that saved him from a snake's wiliness, cats never fall on their backs, and the trace of his fingers is visible in the dark stripes that appear on the foreheads of most cats. The cat is clean and does not spoil man's purity for prayer (as does the dog), and its drinking water can be used for ritual ablutions. Many Ṣūfīs have had cats as companions, animals that have sometimes performed wonderful feats of clairvoyance or self-sacrifice to save others from danger or death. The most remarkable cult of cats is connected with the North African beggars' order of the Heddawa, in which cats are treated like humans; however, once in a while a cat is ritually killed by the brethren. Cats can assume the shape of saints or helpers, as in pre-Islamic Arabia, where desert demons, ghūl, were visualized with cats' heads. Even the Sakīnah, God's presence, appeared to the Prophet in the shape of a white cat.

Caterwauling, not always appreciated by most people, has sometimes been interpreted as mysterious music. An early Arabian musician learned some superb songs from a black cat in his dreams. Nursery rhymes sing of the cat's fiddling, and the cat's purr has sometimes been interpreted as its prayer.

Benevolent cats occur frequently in folk tales. The Dick Whittington motif of the cat that proves useful in a country without cats is known in the East and the West. The friendly, clever tomcat, manifested in Puss in Boots, is a common topic of folk tradition. It is always the youngest of three sons who inherits the resourceful cat. Thus, the cat often uses its magic properties for positive ends and appears as a mediator between the hero and the supernatural world. This expresses best the good side of the cat's ambivalent character and of its role as an animal that is powerful in the three realms of activity: demonic, human, and divine.

Bibliography

Carl Van Vechten's The Tiger in the House, 3d ed. (New York, 1936), includes interesting chapters on cats in the occult and in folklore as well as an extensive, classified bibliography. Since publication of this work, the literature about cats has increased enormously and at present is growing almost daily. Excellent surveys can be found in Nine Lives: The Folklore of Cats, by Katharine M. Briggs (New York, 1980), and in Le chat dans la tradition spirituelle, by Robert de Laroche (Paris, 1984). For Islamic cat lore, see my discussion in Die orientalische Katze (Cologne, 1983).