CAT FACTS, SUPERSTITIONS AND BELIEFS THROUGH THE AGES

ANCIENT EGYPT

In ancient Egypt, a rich man's cat was elaborately mummified, wound 'round and 'round with stuff and cunningly plaited with linen ribbons dyed two different colours. His head was encased in a rough kind of papier-mache that was covered with linen and painted, even gilt sometimes, the ears always carefully pricked up. The mummy might be enclosed in a bronze box with a bronze statue of the cat seated on the top. Even a finer burial might await a particularly grand cat. A poor man's cat was rolled up in a simple lump, but the rolling was carefully and respectfully done. William Martin Conway (1856 - 1937)

When a cat died, a wise Egyptian tried to be someplace else so that he couldn't be accused of its murder. If a cat died in a private house by a natural death, all the residents shaved their eyebrows. Herodotus (480 - 425 B.C.)

The Egyptian Fertility Goddess Bast was often represented by a cat and worshipped in a vast cult in Egypt from 1780 B.C. until A.D. 392. One version of her name, "Pasht", might have given rise to the English term "puss".

Ra (also known as Osiris), Egyptian Sun God, supposedly changed himself into a cat to do battle with the serpent-like darkness.

ANCIENT ROME

In Ancient Rome, not a single cat's bone has been found at Pompeii, in spite of the fact that it was regularly visited by Greeks from Eygpt. Rome knew so little about the uses of the cat that their rough soldiers and their vain leaders never understood the feelings of Egyptians for their cats. Once when the Nile area was occupied by Caesar and his army, a Roman soldier was mobbed and murdered savagely in a street in Alexandria. The crowd, accusing him of having accidentally killed a cat, threw themselves on him, lynched him, and dragged his corpse the length and breadth of the town. Deaf to the Roman threats of severe reprisals, the Egyptians rose and resistance began. It did not stop until the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra, when Egypt, at last effectively defeated, became a Roman province; and the cat, formerly worshipped, was ostracized. Fernand Mery, The Lift, History and Magic of the Cat

Diana, Greek Goddess of Wisdom, was represented by the moon, a potent cat symbol throughout the ages.

ENGLAND

Charles I of England (1600 - 1649) had a black cat, which he carried with him everywhere he went, claiming that the cat was his luck. When the cat died, the king wailed, "My luck is gone!" He was arrested the next day and later beheaded. Leonore Fleischer, The Cat's Pajamas

She useth therefore to wash her face with her feet, which she licketh and moiseneth with her tongue; and it is observed by some that if she put her feet beyond the crown of her head in this kind of washing, it is a sign of rain. John Swan, Speculum Mundi (1643)

There are some who if a cat accidentally come into the room, though they neither see it nor are told of it, will presently be in a sweat, and ready to die Increase Mather (1639 - 1723)

In England, the superstitious still hold the cat in high esteem, and oftentimes when observing the weather, attribute much importance to its various movements. Thus, according to some, when they sneeze it is a sign of rain. T.F. Dyer (1889)

SWEDEN/NORWAY

In 1699, at the Swedish town of Mora, 300 children were accused of employing demon cats to steal butter, cheese, and bacon. Fifteen of the children were killed, and every Sunday for a year, 36 were whipped before the church doors. Time, December 1981

In Norse mythology, two gray cats drew the chariot of Freya, Scandinavian Goddess of Love and Beauty. The cats also played around her ankles as a symbol of her domesticity.

MISCELLANEOUS

A crafty, subtle, watchful Creature, the mortal enemy to the Rat, Mouse, and all sorts of Birds, which it seizes on as its prey. As to its Eyes, Authors say that they shine in the Night, and see better at the full, and more dimly at the change of the Moon.

It is a neat and cleanly Creature, often licking it self, to keep it fair and clean, and washing its Face with its fore-feet. They usually generate in the winter Season, making a great noise.

Its Flesh is not usually eaten, yet in some Countries it is accounted an excellent dish, but the Brain is said to be poisonous, causing madness, stupidity, and loss of memory, which is cured only by vomiting, and taking musk in Wine. The flesh applied easeth the pain of Haemorrhoids; and the back, salted, beaten, and applied, draws Thorns, etc., out of the Flesh, and is said particularly to help the Gout. William Salmon, The English Physician

TO WHIP A CAT

The slang phrases "To whip a cat" and "to draw through the water with a cat" mean to practice a practical joke. The origin is given in Francis Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongues (1785) as follows: "A trick often practiced on ignorant country fellows by laying a wager with them that they may be pulled through a pond by a cat; the bet being made, a rope is fastened round the waist of the person to be catted, and the end thrown across the pond, to which the cat is also fastened, and three or four sturdy fellows are appointed to lead and whip the cat; these on a signal given, seize the end of the rope, and pretending to whip the cat, haul the astonished booby through the water."

The Oxford English Dictionary, which has six columns of fine print on the word cat, cites a 1725 letter to the London Gazette: "We hope, sir, that this Nation will be too Wise to be drawn twice through the same Water by the very same Cat."

A statue of 1618 forbids the inhabitants of Ypres the pleasure of hurling a cat from their tower on the second Wednesday of Lent, as had been their honored custom for years. Agnes Repplier (1855 - 1950) The Fireside Sphynx

The cat's homing instinct is phenomenal. One family pet, given to friends in California, set out on a 1,400-mile trip back to its original owner in Oklahoma. When the bedraggled cat arrived in Oklahoma 14 months later, it was positively identified by an old hipbone deformity. The People's Almanac #2

The cat is the only animal, other than the camel and the giraffe to walk by moving its front and hind legs on one side, then the other. William H.A. Carr, The Basic Book of the Cat

Tsun-Kyanské, the Burmese Goddess of the Transmutation of Souls, was attended by priests and their cats, animals supposedly able to communicate directly with the goddess.

The Babylonian Gods of Silver, Gold, and Wood were depicted with cats sitting on their shoulders.

Siamese (Thai) Kings, believed godlike, required a cat for their souls to pass into upon death, so that the soul could rest for the cat's natural life span before entering Paradise.

Malaysians venerated the cat as a godlike creature who eased their afterlife journey from Hell to Paradise. Anyone who killed a cat was required to carry and stack as many coconut tree trunks as the cat had hairs.

Left-handed Cats

Dr. J. Michael Warren, director of the Animal Behaviour Laboratory at Penn State, spent more than a year testing cats and found them almost evenly divided in preference for the right forepaw and the left forepaw in delicate food-snatching assignments. Indeed, the proportion of right to left was nine to eight.

Ashley Montague and Edward Darling, The prevalence of Nonsense