Cats are pre-eminently pets. Children love cats. Cats provide cosiness, homeliness. If you have a cat at home, remember that it is not you, but the cat is in charge. A cat always has its own (graceful) course. A cat is not for the cat and often not a kitten to handle without gloves.
The cat as a pet. Since when?
Our house cat is probably a cross of the African wild cat, the Nubian cat with the European cat common in our regions. The African cat was found not only in Africa, but in the entire Mediterranean region. The European cat was more stocky and less graceful than the Nubian. The cat is found as a pet in Western Europe around the eighth century.
In the Middle East, the cat had been a housemate for much longer. A statuette several thousand years old from Anatolia shows us a woman playing with a cat. Long before the beginning of our era, the cat was already a pet in Jericho. Also on murals from the old Egypt cats are depicted. For example, there is a picture of an Egyptian cutting papyrus. Birds fly up from the reeds, a cat jumps up to catch one. Also in Jordan and Mesopotamia the cat seems to be established as a pet. Mosaic floors in ancient Rome also depict cats in addition to other motifs.
In those ancient times, the cat was kept not primarily for its beauty, grace or domesticity, but more for practical reasons: cats were fine mouse and rat catchers in the granaries.
In the old Egypt was the cat a holy animal. By 3000 BC, the cat was fully accepted as a pet there. Sometimes whole amounts were left to the cat in wills. Well-known is the story of the legacy that was entirely intended for cat food from the own domestic cat. In a house fire, the bystanders once formed a cordon to keep the cat away from the fire, while in the burning building there was an old woman who was left to her fate. Cats were also often mummified. Many examples of this are available in museums. The story goes that cats were the only living creatures who – except the high priest – were allowed to enter the holy of holies of the Amon temples. To give them access there, cat flaps were placed in the outer wall, so that the sacred animals could enter and exit unhindered. After a while, the most sacred spaces stank the most horrible: the cats went to the bathroom without anyone there to clean up the mess. The stench of the Amon temples became proverbial. Our word Ammonia, the stench of the temples of Amon, would be derived from that. The moon goddess Bastet was depicted with a cat face. In her honor (or the cat?) A complete cat city was set up. Large burial fields with mummified cats have been found there.
In ancient Egypt, killing a cat was often punishable by death. When a house cat was dead, the whole family mourned; the hair was shaved and the nails were cut.
Persian soldiers gratefully took advantage of the sanctity of the cat in battle against the Egyptians by carrying a cat on their arms as they approached the Egyptian army. The Egyptians did not dare to shoot because they were afraid to injure or kill the cat.
Mohammed some centuries after Christ called the cat his favorite animal. That also contributed to the spread of cats as pets, far into the Indies.
In our regions around the beginning of our era would be the goddess Freya racing through the air in a car pulled by cats. When Christianity got a foothold here, the elements reminiscent of paganism were soon over. The cat was also banned to the section paganism and superstition and became a symbol of dark practices.
Very striking is that in the Bible the cat nowhere.
The cat and the superstition
The cat, especially the black cat, became a symbol of all things dark. The poor animal is said to play a large part in sorcery, witchcraft and heresy. Of course you have to get rid of such an animal and as cruelly as possible. This is how cats became in the city on the day of St. John Metz herded together in northern France and burned by dozens at a time. In Ypres (Belgium) existed the so-called “cat Wednesday”. On the second Wednesday of Lent, cats have been thrown from the highest tower there since the year 1000. This phenomenon is commemorated every year in Ypres on the second Sunday in May during the so-called cat parade.
In the Middle Ages, an old woman living alone who happened to have a cat was unsure of her life. Not infrequently she was accused of witchcraft, in which the cat had to provide the decisive evidence. It was often thought that the witch in the guise of the cat sneaked through the village at night to search for victims.
It was also thought that cats could transmit fatal diseases. The animal’s teeth would be poisonous: a cat bite could therefore make people sick, even fatally injure them. Swallowing cat hair resulted in instant death. Cat breath is said to affect people’s lungs and cause consumption. Do not think that these were fabrications of stupid people: not so long ago, scientific treatises were written on these matters.
It was also not long ago that the terrible habit of embedding a living cat into the foundation of a new home was abandoned. This could be seen as an offering to the gods to ensure prosperity and happiness to the future occupants of the house.
Don’t think all superstitions surrounding cats are a thing of the past. Even today, there are those who claim a tricolor calico cat protects a house against fire. It is also very scary to encounter a black cat, especially on Fridays and in the dark. It is completely scary when such a meeting takes place on Friday the thirteenth in the dark.
People and cats
You either love the cat or you don’t love the cat. There is actually no middle way. A nice bit of psychology: people with a predominant nature would not really like cats. It is known that Alexander the Great, Napoleon and Hitler hated cats, because a cat goes its own way and refuses to submit to people. Then you just have to be a dictator and not tolerate any contradiction.
As we noted in the introduction to this article, do not think that you are in charge of the cat. The cat is its own boss and also the boss of its “owner”.