CATLORE

by Joelle Steele

Cats have been a source of mystery to mankind since the dawn of recorded history. Their mythology alone is extensive to say the least, dating back to ancient Egyptian and Chinese cultures. And today, the many superstitions surrounding our feline companions still exist in some of the more primitive regions of the world.

THE WORD "CAT"

The word "cat" in and of itself has a history and mythology behind it. The Romans called the cat "felis," a word derived from a Latin root which has to do with a good and positive magical omen, and from which we get the word "feline." But, the Romans also called the cat "catta" which was also what they called the weasel, the original rat-catcher of the time. The word "catta" is believed to have Egyptian (Nubian) roots in the word "kadis" which has been interpreted as both "cat" and "holy." During the middle ages, it was claimed that the word "cat" came from either the Latin word "catus" meaning acute and referring to the cat's acute vision, or from "captura" or "captat," two forms of a Latin word meaning to capture, and referring to a cats' ability to catch their prey.

It is from these roots that we get our modern-day scientific classification of Felidae for the cat family, and Feline catus, the genus and species signifying the domestic house cat. Also, many other cultures have words for the cat which may stem from these Latin roots. For example, the Dutch word for cat is "kat," the Hindu word is "katas," and the Turkish is "qadi."

Cats have also been called "puss" through the ages. In fact, up until the eighteenth century, the word "puss" was used in England to refer to cats and rabbits alike. It is believed by linguists to be a corruption of the Egyptian word "Pasht" which was one of the names for their cat goddess Bastet (Bast). Many experts also believe that the English word "meow" and the Chinese word for cat "mao" are derived from the Egyptian "Mau," another name for the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet.

EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

In ancient Egypt, cats were considered a sign of good fortune. In their complex religious system of gods and goddesses, Bastet (Bast) was a goddess with the head of a cat. She was the "mistress of the oracle" and the "little sister" of the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet, also called Mau and known as the "great cat." Both Bastet and Sekhmet were lunar deities who ruled women and cats and were sacred to the goddess Isis whose images they frequently adorn.

Ancient Egyptian lore stated that the cat was the destroyer of demons and the serpents of the underworld. The eye of the cat was supposed to be one of the eyes of their god Horus and was linked to many magical beliefs. Many sacred eye amulets of the time contained images of cats, and some even believed that a giant cat looked down on the world from the skies.

So revered was the cat by the ancient Egyptians that they mummified their dead pets in much the same ornate manner as they did humans, often adorning their bodies with jewels and protective amulets. In the early 19th century, an enormous cemetery containing over 50,000 mummified cats was discovered in Tel Beni-Hassan, however, that site was later plundered and destroyed, probably for the riches it contained. It was also a customary magical sign and denotation of grief and mourning, to shave your eyebrows when your cat died.

CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY

The cat played a lesser role in the mythology of the ancient Greeks and Romans. In those cultures she was not deified, but was prominently portrayed in the company of the gods. The Roman goddess of liberty had a cat lying at her feet, probably to denote the cat's love of freedom. The Roman moon goddess Diana, identified with the Greek goddess Artemis, turned herself into a cat when she tried to escape the advances of Typhon. And, the Greek sun god Apollo was believed to have created the lion while the moon goddess Diana created her own smaller version of the lion, that being the cat.

The ancient Greek fabulist, Aesop, gives us several tales of cats in which felines are portrayed as clever and cunning. But, one tale is mixed in with the mythology of the time. In it, a cat asks the goddess Aphrodite to turn her into a woman so that she can marry a man with whom she has fallen in love. Aphrodite does so but later decided to test her own magic and see if the cat has been truly transformed inside. So the goddess sets a mouse loose in the couple's bedroom while they are in bed. The transformed cat was unable to forget her true nature and she pursued the mouse. Aphrodite determined that her magic was only skin deep and turned the woman back into a cat. The moral is that you can't become anything other than what you are unless you have the strength to first change inside.

EASTERN MYTHOLOGY

The Chinese have some ancient sayings that make use of feline symbolism. They use the expression "the cat weeping for the rat" to denote feigned remorse, and they say that "the cat and the rat are sleeping together" in reference to criminal conspiring together. But, while they have many other cat sayings, the cat was not considered worthy of inclusion in their astrological zodiac. This was because of an old myth about the cat's behavior in the presence of the dying Buddha. It seems that all the animals came to pay their last respects. But, the cat, instead of weeping, became distracted by the rat which she killed and ate.

In Burma, a cat named Sinh who had golden eyes, was worshipped by a religious sect of priests who believed the cat possessed oracular powers. And, priests in Siam have a belief about Siamese cats which have what are commonly called "temple marks," located on their upper backs near the neck and resembling finger prints. These priests believe that cats marked in this way are sacred because the first temple mark was supposedly made when a god picked up the cat, leaving the reflection of his touch on the cat and all its descendants.

EUROPEAN MYTHOLOGY

In the Scandinavian countries, the cat is again immortalized in myth and legend. The Finnish national epic of the Kalevala has a magical giant cat which transports men to the land of Pohja. This magical cat became the intermediary between the world as we know it, and the spirit world. In Nordic and Teutonic mythology the cat was seen as a friend and consort of the gods. Freya, a lunar goddess and the goddess of fertility, rode in a chariot drawn by lynxes and cats were sacred to her.

In the British Isles, the Irish tell a tale of a cat named Iruscan who lived in a cave at Knowth in Meath. He was the undisputed king of all cats and was as big as an ox. On the Isle of Man, the locals tell an old tale of how the Manx cat came to lose its tale. It seems that the cat originally had a tail, but marauding Irish soldiers reputedly used the tails as magic talismans which they hung on their shields. Mother cats grew tired of having their kitten's slaughtered for their tails, so they began to bite their tails off at birth.

Some legends had their roots in less ancient eras. One such tale is of a one Reverend Hawker in Cornwall, England who supposedly converted nine cats into his religion and then excommunicated one after it caught a mouse one Sunday. Another English story tells of Lady Sybil who transformed herself into a white cat. In that form, she played at a nearby mill where the miller accidentally cut off one of her paws. She returned home with one of her hands missing but restored it with her magical powers. This story is reminiscent of one about Lady Ann who also turned herself into a cat. In her case, her own butler struck her with a meat cleaver and wounded her paw. When she returned to her human form, her hand was supposedly still wounded.

Other catlore comes to us in the form of such literature as Puss in Boots and Dick Whittington and His Cat. Both tales tell of how a cunning cat manages to manifest riches for his master. Puss in Boots comes from an early 18th century French tale. As for Dick Whittington, the story says he became Lord Mayor of London and married his rich master's daughter after returning to London with his cat. In the early 15th century, there really was a Dick Whittington who was first a sheriff, then Mayor of London, and later on a Member of Parliament. Like the tale, he did walk to London and did marry his master's daughter, however, there is nothing to verify that a feline played a role in his biography.

CHRISTIAN BELIEFS

Up until the beginning of the middle ages, cats were revered in virtually every ancient culture. But, with the spread of Christianity during those early times, came a new and very unpleasant role for the cat, from which it did not escape until several hundred years later in the 19th century.

At first, the cat was incorporated into Christian legends in a positive, though somewhat frivolous manner. For example, one legend said that at the moment Mary gave birth to Jesus, a mother cat also gave birth to a kitten. This gave way to another myth at the time which stated that cats were impregnated through the ear. This was because in those times it was widely believed that the Virgin Mary conceived Jesus through her ear as she heard the word of the Holy Spirit.

But soon, these innocent myths and beliefs turned sour. When scholars and churchmen discovered that the domestic cat is mentioned only once in the Bible, in the Epistle of Jeremy in the Apocrypha (Bar. 6:22), they interpreted this omission as a sign that the common house cat was a demonic entity. This was further confirmed in the Gnostic Bible (Pistis Sophia), a document deemed heretical by Christians, in which the "twelve great halls of punishment" were ruled over and populated by cats.

During those early days of the middle ages, Christian and pagan beliefs were often intertwined, probably because so many pagans were reluctant to entirely abandon their old ways in favor of a whole new set of beliefs. As a result, we find the celebration of the pagan "Corn Cat" mixed up with the Christian holiday of Corpus Christi. A tom cat was wrapped in swaddling clothes and adored like the holy child. Sounds a little weird but otherwise okay until you dig a little deeper and find that they ultimately sacrificed the poor animal.

Deeper into the middle ages, the cat is found more and more often in art and literature as a symbol of the devil. Even early versions of the Last Supper use the cat as a symbol of Judas' betrayal. And by the 15th century, Christian art depicts the cat almost exclusively as an agent of evil, this being an official outcome of the spiritual reforms prevalent in the church during that time.

From the 16th century well into the late 18th century when the last witch trial was held, cats were feared and loathed. They were associated almost exclusively with witchcraft, being believed to be the demonic "familiars" of the witches they served. In fact, the most horrorific of witch trial judges, Jean Bodin, claimed that all cats were witches in disguise. During those dark times, it was not unusual, and it is extensively documented, that many innocent people were burned at the stake as witches based entirely upon their ownership or association with cats.

SUPERSTITIONS

Many wild and wonderful cat superstitions abound from all corners of the globe. Many are based in old legends long forgotten while others spring from mistaken observations made by one person and passed on to others, probably through generations.

Many superstitions arose in the middle ages. For instance, it was believed that if a male cat jumped over a plate of food, that the woman who ate from that dish could conceive a litter of kittens. Cats were believed to shine light out of their eyes, see spirits and other apparitions, and even howl in the presence of demons.

As late as the 17th and 18th centuries it was believed that if a person was in pain they could transfer their agony and discomfort to a cat by simply inserting their finger into the ear of a cat. An old Cornish cure for a stye involved drawing a black cat's tail over the afflicted eye nine times. During medieval times, physicians believed a cat bite was toxic enough to turn one's body green. They further believed that the brain of a cat was poisonous if eaten.

Cats have often been believed endowed with psychic powers and the ability to predict death. The most common superstition of this sort claims that if a cat abandons a home it is because a person living in that house is about to die. To this day in northern Italy, it is believed by some that Satan, in the form of a cat, passes the bed of a dying man. In certain regions of France such as Normandy, a black cat crossing your path by the light of the moon is a warning that death is near. And, in Germany, a cat resting on a new grave is a sure sign that the deceased has gone to hell.

Other cat superstitions are linked to the maritime and the weather. To know about the tides, one had only to look at the size of a cat's pupils. Sailors were said to prefer black cats, but it was considered bad luck to refer to the cat by anything other than a euphemism such as the "my ebony companion." Passing a cat on one's way to work was a bad omen for a fisherman who turned around and went right back home at such an ominous sight. It was also believed that if a cat either licked its fur against the grain or scratched the legs of furniture, that this would cause a storm. A playful cat was the sign of a gusty windstorm on its way. And, woe to the ship whose cat was tossed overboard as this would surely cause a hurricane.

These days, we are less superstitious and while we enjoy hearing a good cat story, it is usually just that --a good cat story. But, some people do believe that their cats possess super-human powers of one kind of another. I personally believe that some cats can predicts earthquakes. That's because one of my cats has been 100% accurate in doing just that. But, aside from that, she's just a sweet little house cat, a descendant of a her much adored and often legendary ancestors.