The history and superstition surrounding our feline companions!
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Music: "Wonderland" by Alexander Nakarada (www.serpentsoundstudios.com)
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Bibliography:
"Black Cats Shunned for Purr-fect Selfies." BBC. January 30, 2018. Accessed January 19, 2022. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42871851
Brulliard, Karin. "Long Before They Conquered the Internet, Cats Took Over the World." The Washington Post. June 19, 2017. Accessed January 19, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2017/06/19/long-before-they-conquered-the-internet-cats-took-over-the-world/
Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences. Edited by Cora Linn Daniel and Prof. C.M. Stevans. University Press of the Pacific: 1903.
"How Did Cats Become Domesticated?" Library of Congress. November 19, 2019. Accessed January 19, 2022. https://www.loc.gov/everyday-mysteries/item/how-did-cats-become-domesticated/
Hutchinson, Sean. "13 Writers Who Really Loved Cats." Mental Floss. August 8, 2018. Accessed January 19, 2022. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/49302/11-writers-who-really-loved-cats
Mark, Joshua J. "Cats in the Middle Ages." World History Encyclopedia. May 20, 2019. Accessed January 19, 2022. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1387/cats-in-the-middle-ages/
Porck, Thijs. "Paws, Pee and Mice: Cats among Medieval Manuscripts." Medievalfragments. February 22, 2013. Accessed January 19, 2022. https://medievalfragments.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/paws-pee-and-mice-cats-among-medieval-manuscripts/
Simpson, Frances. The Book of the Cat. London, Paris, New York and Melbourne: Cassell and Company, 1903.
Smith, Casey. "Cats Domesticated Themselves, Ancient DNA Shows." National Geographic. June 19, 2017. Accessed January 19, 2022. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/domesticated-cats-dna-genetics-pets-science
Welcome back, friends, to Scholar Minor.
Today we’ll be talking about one of my very favorite topics - cats. I am a huge fan of cats in all shapes, sizes, colors, and ages. I’ve got two of my own who are very spoiled and enjoying their golden years lounging and spilling every beverage they encounter.
We’ve got a lot to cover today, so without further ado, Thank you, as always, for listening. I hope you enjoy.
Our feline friends have been with us from our earliest days. By studying cat DNA, researchers working with scientist Claudio Ottoni discovered that all domesticated cats share ancestry with the North African / Southwest Asian wildcat, scientific name Felis silvestris lybica.
Humans settled in the earliest farming communities in the 9th millennium BCE, in a region known as the Fertile Crescent or the Cradle of Civilization - south and west of the Mediterranean in the Middle East. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers flow through this region, much of it wetland, and as a result the soil is incredibly fertile and perfect for growing crops.
When civilization began to grow, so, too did the numbers of wildcats hanging around. When you grow grains, you need to store them. And wherever you store them, there will be mice and rats at the ready to eat as much as they can before you do. Wildcats appreciated the rodent banquet that humans had provided them, and started to domesticate themselves.
Cats and humans developed a mutually beneficial relationship in our early history. Cats enjoyed the reliable source of food, and humans were grateful to have the numbers of rodents in their settlements and food storage kept at bay. And so - humans began to take cats along with them, spreading their population West and eventually into Europe.
Ottoni’s research shows that the early wildcats and our modern house cats have very few differences in their genetics. The most significant changes over time were in fur coloring.
Tabby patterning, a trait only occasionally observed in ancient cats, became extremely common by the medieval period. There were higher populations of ginger cats in Northern Europe. But the truly fanciful variety of cats we have today are largely the result of 19th century intentional breeding.
When considering the history of cats, one of the first peoples that comes to mind is the Egyptians. The Egyptians were devoted to cats. We've talked before about the spiritual significance of cats in ancient Egypt, in Three Awesome Goddesses, episode 17. Bast, or Bastet, was the Egyptian goddess of health, protection, music, dancing, joy, intoxication, sex, and cats.
She was regarded very highly and was one of the most trusted and admired deities. As cats were sacred to Bastet, even injuring a cat could result in death as a punishment. For some more detail about Bastet and her felines, check out the prior mentioned episode.
Also mentioned in the Three Awesome Goddesses episode is Freyja. This norse goddess of love, fertility, and war rode through the sky on a chariot pulled by two cats.
By tracing mitochondrial DNA, researchers believe that the movement of cats around the world began to accelerate in the early middle ages. Remains of medieval cats from Northern Germany reveal they are direct descendents from Egyptian feline bloodlines.
Geneticist Eva-Maria Geigl explains that "when we look at the pattern that we have, this tells us the story of human mobility - war paths, trading paths, and mostly seafaring paths. This must have been a cat that was at the time very attractive to people, because it spread very efficiently."
Unfortunately, cats suffered greatly during the middle ages. Cats were firmly associated with pagan imagery, putting them in danger when Christianity became Europe's dominant religion. They were kept around for their mousing skills, but in general, cats were mistrusted and believed to associate with the devil and witchcraft.
Illness, famine, or local tragedies were often blamed on cats and it was not uncommon for them to be killed as a result. Similarly, associating closely with cats could be damning evidence for an individual being accused of practicing dark magic and heresy.
On a positive note, it appears that not everyone in the medieval era was afraid to pal around with felines. Some of the most wonderful evidence of domestic cats can be found in (and on) manuscripts from the middle ages. Shown as part of an exhibition by the British Library in 2018 were numerous medieval manuscripts displaying evidence of cat interference.
As a person who's own cat tried to knock my coffee cup over onto my keyboard mere moments ago, it’s oddly comforting to know their behavior hasn’t changed much in these many hundreds of years.
Many manuscripts display muddy or inky little pawprints. Some monks would include portraits of cats in their illustrations and margin decorations.
We even have an example of a poor fellow in Deventer, Netherlands whose cat peed on his manuscript while he was copying it. Around a telling stain on one of the pages, this 15th century scribe wrote some words of caution:
"Here is nothing missing, but a cat urinated on this during a certain night. Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book during the night in Deventer and because of it many others too. And beware well not to leave open books at night where cats can come."
We’ve talked quite a bit about superstition in Scholar Minor episodes, and it is likely no surprise that cats have their fair share of bizarre associations. Unbelievably, some of these beliefs have persisted - primarily those surrounding black cats.
A cat’s black fur is usually the result of the same gene responsible
for your typical tabby markings. This is why many black cats actually look a little dark brown in direct sunlight. But their dark fur made them the prime target for anti-cat propaganda. Black cats were believed to be those cats most likely to become involved with Satan and his evil forces, and suffer mistreatment to this day.
A study by the RSPCA in 2018 found that it often takes black or mostly-black cats at least 10 days longer than those with other coloring to find a home. This is likely due in part to the superstitions surrounding these kitties, and unfortunately recent years have introduced a new barrier for black cats - it's more difficult to photograph them because of their coloring.
RSPCA scientific officer Doctor Jane Tyson told the BBC in 2018, "Their fur color makes no difference to how much love they have to give. Cats are so much more than tools for social media likes - they will become your constant companions and best friends, no matter what color they are."
Don't worry, influencers - if you have a black kitty, you can still take engagement-worthy photos for your Instagram if you're so inclined - find a soft natural light source and keep the background minimal so he or she will stand out.
The ever-strange 1903 Encyclopedia of Superstitions does not have many nice things to say about cats. We encounter some of our usual fare: "If a cat stretches so that her paws touch each other, it is a sign of bad weather."
Some that are dubious in both origin and meaning: "In Sweden, the peasants think if you are ugly to your cat, you will be ugly to your man.”
And some that hit a little close to home: "Maidens who are particularly fond of cats will become old maids." Ouch.
In spite of all the terrible press, cats continued stealing the hearts of many - including old maids like myself. Fortunately, cats found that the tides of their reputation began to turn in the 19th century.
Some of the religiously-driven distrust of cats had begun to fade, and they became a regular part of many households. While they did not yet have the status of dogs, they were gradually becoming more widely appreciated for their companionship - not just their ability to hunt mice.
Finally, things really started looking up for cat. They became the pet of choice for many artists - especially writers. Mark Twain had a large black cat named Bambino, Ernest Hemingway had Snowball, and T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats was immensely successful, eventually inspiring the Broadway musical Cats.
William Butler Yeats' poem The Cat and the Moon features a cat named Minnaloushe, who belonged to his muse Maude Gonne:
"Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important, and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes."
Cats had developed a following. In 1903, Frances Simpson published The Book of the Cat: a work covering everything from cat care, to showing, to illustrations and descriptions of the various documented breeds.
Simpson advises that warmth, comfort, and fresh water should always be made available to your cat - and suggests a varied diet is best as they are particular eaters. For meals, she suggests chopped fish, liver, or horsemeat. For variety - and I'd like to point out that you should give none of the following to your cat - Simpson advises "oatmeal well boiled, cornflour" or soaked biscuits.
Despite some strange dietary recommendations, Simpson has put together an impressive collection of material. She even includes a section on exhibiting your cat - a practice that would become more common in the coming years. "It behoves all cat fanciers and would-be exhibitors to do everything in their power to make their cats look their very best," she advises, "so that their pets may be things of beauty in the show pen."
There were many folks who shared Frances Simpson’s interests at the turn of the century. The first cat shows organized by the Cat Fancier's Association were held in Buffalo, New York and Detroit, Michigan in 1906. The CFA remains the largest registry of pedigreed cats.
That will do it for our discussion of cats. I’d like to leave you with this observation from Frances Simpson:
"Perhaps, because [the cat] is such a secret, complex, and independent creature she has remained somewhat of a puzzle to humankind, and is therefore to a great extent misunderstood; but those who will take the trouble to consider the cat and try to understand her, will find that puss is none of those things she has accused of being."
Thank you again for listening, everyone. My references and contact information are in the show notes, and if you haven’t already, please consider subscribing to Scholar Minor wherever you find your podcasts.
I hope you and your furry friends are staying healthy and safe in this new year - and I look forward to our next episode.