"Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods.   Cats have never forgotten this."

The ancient Egyptians revered cats as sacred beings.  How could they have known that they were setting such a dangerous precedent?   (Strange But True: Ancient Egyptians shaved off their eyebrows to mourn the deaths of their cats.)  The small African wildcat found an easy and abundant food supply in the mice and rodents attacking the Egyptian grain supplies.  Since the cat did not eat the grain itself, and buried its droppings well away from both the food source and the people, Egyptians began leaving small treats out for the cats to encourage them to return.  By the time of the Pharaohs, cats were an integral part of society, prized not only for keeping the grain supply intact, but for their companionship. 

"For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Icneumon-rat very pernicious by land."
-- Christopher Smart (English Poet, 1722-1771)

The Pharaohs raised the status of the domesticated cat to godhood.  In case of fire, it was customary to save the domestic cat before any attempt was made to put out the flames.  Mummies were made of cats, and embalmed mice were placed with them in their tombs.  In one ancient city, over 300,000 cat mummies were found.  The Egyptian cat-goddess Bast (portrayed with the body of a woman and head of a cat) was the defender of cats and those who cared for these special creatures.  This was a natural association.  Bast was a goddess of the moon, and cat's glowing eyes were thought to work on the same principle as the moon, shining with light stored from the sun during the day.  One Egyptian belief was that the sun god Re turned into a cat at dawn to slay the night's serpent of darkness, Apep.  A deceased Egyptian was often buried with a small ivory wand decorated with the head of a cat symbolizing, according to popular belief , the cat who would guide and protect the soul of the departed as it journeyed to the underworld.

"Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the gods,
and the judge of words, and the president of the sovereign chiefs
and the governor of the holy Cirle; thou art indeed... the Great Cat."
-- Inscription on the royal tombs at Thebes

Around 500 B.C., the renowned Egyptian love for cats was used against them.   Cambyses, commander of the Persian army that had just been repelled in its attack on the Egyptian town of Pelusium, retreated and ordered that all the cats in the area be gathered up.  When the Persians renewed their assault, each solider was carrying a cat, and a large number of cats was herded before their army.  Faced the likelihood of accidentally killing a cat, the town surrendered without a fight.

The Sicilian historian Diodorus wrote in 50 B.C. of the death of a visiting Roman.  "...when one of the Romans killed a cat and the multitude rushed in a crowd to his house, neither the officials sent by the king to beg the man off nor the fear of Rome which all the people felt were enough to save the man from punishment, even though his act had been an accident."

For more than a thousand years, the Egyptians banned the export of their cats.   Greek visitors, recognizing the superiority of cats to ferrets and weasels for pest control, resorted to stealing pairs of cats to take back to Greece to breed.  The first record of a domestic cat in Greece is circa 500 B.C.  Once the Greeks had an adequate supply of cats for themselves, they began offering them in trade them to European merchants, and so the domestic cat spread across the continent.  A notable exception is the Roman people, who resisted adopting the cat into their homes until the 4th century A.D.  Julius Caesar was afraid of cats.  In the ruins of Pompeii, buried under lava in 79 B.C., not a single cat skeleton was found.  Roman mythology claimed that Diana, goddess of the moon and the hunt, created the cat to mock the lion which her brother Apollo had created.

Far to the north, the Norse goddess Freya, is portrayed as riding a chariot drawn by cats, and is always surrounded by cats.  The Norse, being seafarers, revered shipboard cats for their rodent control abilities.

Unfortunately, our feline friends have not always fared so well.  There is a story that once Buddha held all the animals and men in rapt attention during his teachings.  All, that is, except the cat.  The cat killed a mouse during this session, and ever since some monks considered the cat an unholy being.  Still, there is a  tradition in some places in Asia that when a monk dies, his soul is given to a cat for safekeeping until the Lord Vishnu calls the cat.

In other periods, cats were more fortunate.  A story is told of Muezza, the prophet Mohammed's favorite cat.  One day, when Mohammed had finished his prayer and meditation, he discovered that Muezza had fallen asleep on the sleeve of his robe.  Rather than disturb the cat, he cut off the sleeve so that he could be on his way.   Another legend holds that the 'M' marking on the forehead of the tabby was created by the prophet as he rested his hand lightly on the brow of his favorite cat.

The ancient Chinese believed that cats could repel demons.  Cats were employed to guard homes from evil spirits.

An early Christian legend holds that a cat in the stable in Bethlehem gave birth to kittens at the same time Mary gave birth to Jesus.  Sometimes a cat was pictured in early paintings of the holy family.

In the 9th century, King Henry I of Saxony decreed that the fine for killing a cat should be sixty bushels of corn.

In 10th century western Wales, the cat's importance was firmly established by the official definition of a hamlet as "a place that contains nine buildings, one herdsman, one plough, one kiln, one churn, one bull, one cock, and one cat."  No cat, no hamlet.

In 999, the Japanese emperor began breeding domestic cats at the Imperial Palace, starting a fad among the upper class that lasted for centuries.

A 13th century Egyptian sultan left his entire fortune to the needy cats of Cairo.   For many years afterward homeless cats received a free meal daily.

During the Dark Ages, cats were killed as demonic beings.  It was a phrase in a book written during this period that gave rise to the idea that cats have nine lives.  The English writer William Baldwin in 1584 wrote in his book Beware the Cat that "it is permitted for a witch to take her cat's body nine times."  Baldwin warned readers not to take the life of cat, lest its malevolent spirit return to haunt the killer.  Another writing, The Devil's Bible, claims that "Only imbeciles do not know that all cats have a pact with the Devil."  In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII decreed that all cat-worshippers in Europe be burned as witches, denouncing cats and anyone who would protect them.  During this time, as thousands of "witches" were burned at the stake, many an unfortunate cat accompanied them to their terrible deaths.  This, despite the unsuspected aid that cats provided by reducing the rat population that spread the Bubonic Plague.  On St. John's Day (the eve of the summer solstice), cats were placed in sacks in baskets and burned alive with the blessing of the Church.  Even as late as the Salem witchcraft trials, cats were often burned or hung with those accused of witchcraft (remnants of this period can still be seen in the black cats of Halloween).   A popular "sport" during the time of Shakespeare was to stuff a cat in a bag or leather bottle and suspend it from a tree for archery practice.  In Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare refers to this practice with the line "Hang me in a bottle like a cat."  

Hatred of the cat in Europe was not universal.  King Charles I, who ruled England from 1625 to 1649, kept a black cat which he considered his good luck charm.  (When his cat died, Charles declared "My luck is gone."  The next day he was arrested and eventually beheaded by Oliver Cromwell.)  The French were the first people in Europe to re-adopt the cat.  The court of Louis XV kept and pampered numerous cats.  Cardinal Richelieu, French Minister of State in the 17th century, kept many cats and set up an endowment to provide for the fourteen who survived him.  He employed two servants whose sole duty was to tend to his cats.  By the 19th century, cats were more popular than dogs in England.  Queen Victoria was a notable cat owner.  During Victoria's reign, England was so cat-friendly that, when the Italian ambassador was asked if he had his life to live over again what he would choose to be, he answered, "A cat in London, or a Cardinal in my country."   The British government employed feline "civil servants" to control rats and mice.  The British Post Office established the Cat System in 1868 to feed and care for cats to be used for rodent control.  At its peak, over 100,000 cats were employed by the British government.

The CATS and World Mythology page at the Magic Paw web site has even more cat lore.

"To look wise is quite as good as understanding a thing, and very much easier." -- Oscar Wilde

Cat Facts from History

Feline Forecasters

Ancient mariners believed that a cat's behavior could foretell a change in the weather.   Some sailors considered black cats unlucky since they were thought to bring bad weather.  Tortoiseshell cats were often held by seafarers to be lucky and Japanese sailors in particular would carry a tri-colored cat aboard.  They believed that such a cat could give early enough warning of an approaching storm for the vessel to return to port to avoid it, and would also send the cat up the mast to "put the storm devils to flight".

A widespread belief among seafarers was that if the ship's cat began to frolic, it signified the approach of a gale.  Such behavior would be described as the cat having "a gale of wind in her tail".  The small ripples that are sometimes seen on the surface of an otherwise calm sea are known as cat's paws and are said to be caused by the ghosts of ships' cats dancing ahead of the wind.

On dry land, various cat actions have been taken to presage a change of weather.  In ancient Egypt, it was thought that a cat washing over its ears was a sign of good, clear weather to come.  In China the action of washing behind the ears indicated rain, not fine weather, as did a cat winking.

Modern theories suggest that animals are sensitive to minute electrical signals that herald the onset of a thunderstorm or an earthquake.  The earth's crust on average consists of 15% quartz, rising as high as 55% in some areas, and the piezoelectric effect of the quartz can generate enough electrical energy to account for the creation of airborne ions before and during an earthquake.  Animals may have evolved a sensitivity to electrical changes in their environment.  Some cultures have recognized the ability of cats and other animals to hear ultrasonic sound and detect atmospheric changes to predict natural disasters.  In 1970, the Chinese government began monitoring the behavior of cats and other animals at its national seismographic centers.  When, in February 1975, cats and other animals in Haicheng were observed to be acting strangely, the nearly one million people who lived in the area were evacuated.   Just two hours after the massive evacuations were completed, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck, destroying ninety percent of the buildings in some areas.

James Berkland, a retired USGS geologist, claims to be able to predict earthquakes with greater than 75% accuracy rate simply by counting the number of lost pet ads in the daily newspaper, and correlating this relationship to lunar-tide cycles.   Berkland has been meticulously saving and counting lost pet ads for many years.  He says that the number of missing dogs and cats goes up significantly for as long as two weeks prior to an earthquake.

Perhaps the most renowned feline forecaster achieved fame in the 1930's.  The white male cat, named Napoleon, lived with his owner in Baltimore.  His observant owner, Mrs. de Shields, noted that every time before it rained Napoleon would lie on the floor with his front paws extended and tuck his head between them.  During Napoleon's lifetime there was a drought.  The drought had continued for over a month when his owner noticed the clever cat adopt his "rain on the way" pose.  According the official forecast the weather was to continue dry.  Unconvinced, Mrs. De Shields telephoned a newspaper and told them that it was going to rain -- her cat had prophesied it.  It did indeed rain, and thereafter Napoleon's forecasts were published in the paper.  When he died, the tombstone over his grave was inscribed "Napoleon the Weather Prophet 1917 - 1936".  It was said that in all the six years that he made his predictions he never got it wrong -- which is more than be said for human meteorologists!

"Maneki-Neko", The Beckoning Cat of Japan

The Beckoning Cat of Japan, or "Maneki-Neko", is a talisman in the form of a tri-colored cat sitting down with one paw raised up to its ear.  This 'lucky charm" which originated in Japanese folklore is made in many different sizes and materials, and there are many versions of the legend surrounding it.

One is that long ago the abbot of a particular temple was fond of cats and, even though the temple was poor, he always kept several cats there.  One day after wishing out loud that his cat would bring him luck, a group of Samurais were passing the temple when they saw a cat with its paw raised up to its face as if in greeting.  They took this as a sign of invitation and stopped at the temple to rest.  In doing so they escaped an unexpected storm, and in gratitude became benefactors of the temple, which was soon restored to wealth and honor.  From then on, a cat with a paw uplifted became the symbol of good luck and fortune.

Another version tells how a great nobleman and his entourage were passing by the temple of Gotoku-ji when they were welcomed by a cat with a raised paw.  The nobleman entered the temple and shortly afterwards the spot where he had been standing was hit by lightning.  After that the cat was thought be an incarnation of the Goddess of Mercy, and ever since the temple of Gotoku-ji has been associated with the Beckoning Cat.

Yet another version says that a starving cat turned up one day at the temple of Gotoku-ji and requested food. Despite their poverty, the monks fed the cat.  The cat stayed and from then on the temple became prosperous. The monks believed that the cat had been a messenger from Heaven and honored it as such.

The Gotoku-ji Temple still stands in what are now the suburbs of Tokyo. The outside of the temple is liberally decorated with pictures of the Maneki-Neko, and adjoining the temple is a cemetery where hundreds of cats are buried.  People bring offerings to the shrine at the temple, and in the cemetery there is a stone statue of a cat - the spirit cat that watches over the souls of the cats buried there.  Owners also come to the shrine to pray for their departed cats.  The Beckoning Cat is thought to bring good luck, protect domestic homes and bring prosperity to businesses.

Catnip!

It's more than just fun for your cat.  Researchers in the Department of Entomology at Iowa State University found that chemicals produced naturally in catnip (Nepeta cataria) repel cockroaches.  Folklore includes numerous claims that catnip are repellent to insects and spiders.  Results show that when given a choice between a surface treated with these plant oils and an untreated surface, cockroaches spent much more time on the untreated surface.  One researcher observed that "the roaches will venture onto the treated surface, stop, turn around and walk off onto the untreated surface."  The chemical repellent in catnip is nepetalactone.  Not every cat responds to the effects of catnip.  If the cat doesn't have a specific gene, it won't react.  About 80% of cats do have the gene, and enjoy the effects of catnip, which is purr-fectly safe and non-addictive.

Catnip tea was a regular beverage in England before the introduction of tea from China.  It is also used today as an herbal remedy for upset stomach, insomnia (it contains a mild muscle relaxant), and cough.

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