3
The Cat in Ancient
History and Superstition
Members of the feline family have been involved in the social, cultural, and spiritual growth of humans from the very earliest times, as shown by wall paintings in European Paleolithic caves.
It often happens that a man is more humanely related to a cat or dog than to any human being.
—Henry David Thoreau
In ancient cultures, the cat was both a solar and a lunar animal. It was said to be psychic and could predict coming disasters and affect the weather, hence the expression “raining cats and dogs.” The first pictures or representations of cats, usually lions and leopards, have been discovered in sacred Paleolithic caves.
Archaeologists know these caves were sacred to the Paleolithic cultures because of the paintings themselves and because the actual ritual chambers are so difficult to reach. All of these chambers are found deep in the caves, reached only by traversing narrow ledges and crawling through very narrow openings.18
On a cave wall at Les Trois Freres in France, and dating back 18,000 years, is a painting of a lioness. Her form is part of a series of great, vibrant paintings once used as part of mystic, spiritual rituals. One can imagine the cat’s spirit coming alive in the flickers of the shamanic fire as the worshippers met to honor the Great Goddess and Her unending cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.
Later, in the Neolithic Goddess-culture site of Catal Huyuk in present-day Turkey, leopards and lionesses are again portrayed as powerful, magickal companions of the Great Goddess. An 8,000-year-old statue from Catal Huyuk of a Mother Goddess shows Her giving birth on Her throne; on each side of the Goddess is a leopard, their tails wrapped around Her shoulders, giving their energy to the new creation issuing from between the Goddess’ thighs.
At the same site, on a wall within the ruins of a great matriarchal shrine, two leopards stand face to face, their forms molded in the plaster and richly painted in red. Called the Leopard Shrine, this ancient building must have been the site of powerful and important rituals, for studies have shown that these leopards were repeatedly replastered and painted, leaving up to forty layers of pigment.
Bast (from Budge’s The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. I)
A marble statue recovered from the ruins of Mesopotamia shows an unknown goddess with a lioness head; this has been dated to 5,000 years ago. This goddess holds her tense hand-paws in readiness, a look of deep concentration on her face, as if facing a challenge with undaunted courage.
Ancient Egypt is probably the best-known site of the veneration of cats and other felines. Thousands of statues, paintings, and amulets of feline forms have been unearthed in the Nile region. Egyptian figures of cats often showed them with a scarab engraved on the head or chest. These statues show the Egyptian cat to be slender, long legged, and small of head. The most sacred of these cats was black.
Little amulet-figures of cats have been found in tombs, behind walls, and under the floors of temples and houses. Some of these amulets were pierced so they can be worn. They were made of gold, silver, faience, semiprecious and precious stones. These figures of cats show them in every mood and posture, from meditative to pouncing and running. One of these amulet-figures was a small three-inch column with a cat and kittens on the top. Cats were also used to decorate necklaces, rings, pins, musical instruments, and scepters.19
Setcha, an Egyptian serpent-headed leopard (from A. Wallis Budge’s The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. 1).
In its solar aspect, the cat was immortalized in a string game called the “cat’s cradle.” This game, which consists of two people winding a string into a series of complicated patterns, is still played around the world. Originally, this “game” was used as sympathetic magick, such as with the Eskimos, who used it at Summer Solstice to entangle the Sun and hold it back from the winter setting, and Congo tribes, who used it to persuade the Sun to rest.20
The cat and serpent were long considered to be enemies by the Egyptians. Since the cat symbolized the deity idea of Virgin-Mother, the goddess Isis sometimes assumed a feline form. As Aset, Isis killed the serpent Apep in the original story, not the god Ra as later related in myth.
The ancient Egyptians have long been recognized as cat lovers. They were fervent in their belief that all cats were sacred (especially to several of their goddesses) and should be protected. When Caesar conquered the Nile area, a Roman soldier killed a cat. The Roman declared that this death was accidental, but the Egyptians felt otherwise. The furious crowd lynched the soldier and dragged his body through the city. The Romans threatened reprisals, but it was too late. The Egyptians rioted, finally causing the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra.
Sekhmet (from Budge’s The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. 1).
The cat played an important part in ancient Egyptian mythology. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the male cat is called Mau, the female Mait. Initiates to the Mysteries were taught that cats knew the words to vanquish the powers of darkness; if a person loved and befriended a cat, the animal would tell you those words.
The Egyptian goddess Bast’s usual form was that of a woman with a cat head.21 In her right hand she held a sistrum and in her left an aegis with the head of a cat or lioness on it (an aegis, or shield, is an ancient word for a decorated sacred shield and is used by archaeologists and those trained in mythology). One ancient legend says that Bast was an incarnation of the soul of Isis. Indeed, at Dendera in Egypt, Bast was called the holy Sekhem, wife of the god An, who was a form of Osiris.22 Shown with a cat’s head, Bast represented the Moon, but when she was occasionally portrayed with the head of a lioness (usually painted green), she symbolized the sunlight. Bubastis, the capital of the Amkent, the seventh name of Lower Egypt, was the center of Bast, the cat goddess. Such classical writers as Herodotus, Diodorus, Strabo, and Pliny wrote of this city. Today, this site is marked by the ruins of Tell-Basta.
Ashtoreth (from Budge’s The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. 2).
One statue of Bast shows her right hand holding the sistrum, symbol of lovemaking and joyous dancing, both an important part of her rituals. In her left hand she cradles a small cat figure, which is crowned with a solar disc and the sacred uraeus (cobra).
A lion architectural ornament from Ancient Greece.
Bast’s mirror-sister was the goddess Pasht (Pekheth, Pekhet, or Pekh), the cat or lioness deity of Pekhit. The name Pasht means “tearer.” As Bast, this goddess kept watch at night with her Sun eyes, while as Pasht she held and pierced the head of the serpent of darkness. Near the modern village of Beni Hasan in Upper Egypt are the remains of a temple of Pasht, carved out of solid rock in the mountain.
Another Egyptian goddess often portrayed with the head of a lioness was Sekhmet. A solar goddess, Sekhmet was seen as the ruler of human fate, who usually blazed with divine fury, while Bast was gentler, the guardian of her human “litter.” The opposing qualities of Bast and Sekhmet did not appear until later Egyptian times, a sign of encroaching patriarchal influence over the goddesses.
Not all ancient Mediterranean cultures worshipped cats, however. The Assyrians and Chaldeans were very hostile to their few wild and domestic cats. They had little, if anything, good to say about them at all. In fact, the Chaldeans would shout “Be off, accursed one,” every time they saw a black cat. The Hebrews were extremely hostile to cats; only a brief phrase in Isaiah mentions them as “demons of the desert.”
Ashtoreth, a Syrian goddess, was known to the Egyptians as “Mistress of Horses” and “Lady of the Chariot.” They considered her to be a form of Sekhmet-Hathor. She wore the head of a lioness and was the terrible, destructive deity of war.
In neighboring Arabia, however, they never hated cats. In fact, the Arabs have kept cats from the sixth century CE, and from the time of Mohammed they have treated them with respect and indulgence. In fact, to the Arab peoples a dog is considered to be unclean, while a cat is to be indulged.
Qetesh, an Egyptian Moon goddess who stands upon a lion (from Budge’s The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. 2).
A legend says that Mohammed himself had a favorite cat, Muezza, who obviously slept where he pleased. One day the Prophet had to leave, but Muezza was asleep on the sleeve of his coat. Rather than disturb the cat’s sleep, Mohammed cut off the sleeve and went on about his business. When he returned, Muezza bowed his thanks. In recognition of his love for the cat, Mohammed stroked the length of Muezza’s back three times. Ever since, cats have had the ability to fall on their feet.
The Persian religion of Zoroastrianism, like the Christians, divided animals into those who served good (Ormuzd or Ahura Mazdah) and those who served the devil (Ahriman). To them, the cat was associated with Ahriman, hell, darkness, lust, and laziness.
The palace of Knossos, on the island of Crete, has a painting made of faience wall tiles. This mural dates from about 1600 BCE and shows hunting cats with wild sheep. The hunting cats in this mural are very similar to those seen in Egyptian murals, possibly suggesting that one civilization learned from the other how to train cats for hunting.
According to the Greek Herodotus, in his History, it was Greek sailors who imported Egyptian cats; actually the first evidence of cats appears in Greece about 500 BCE. However, this claim isn’t too plausible since the Phoenicians were sharper traders and better sailors who had trade with Egypt going before the Greeks thought of it and had an established culture long before the Greek states were in existence. The Phoenicians also ranged much farther in their travels than the Greeks did. Also, the Greeks rarely mention the cat, considering it to be of little value.
Although cats may have been in Greece before Alexander the Great conquered that country in 332 BCE, the Archaic Greek word gale meant “weasel” or “polecat.” Herodotus, Aristophanes, and Callimachus (fifth century BCE) used the word cattus (cat), but very infrequently. Gale came to mean “cat” in post-classical Greek and is still used in that context today.
It wasn’t until classical times that the cat was featured in art and literature in Greece. A bas-relief, dating from the Battle of Marathon in the fifth century BCE, shows a cat on a leash with its master.
However, there is a rock temple called Speos Artemidos (Cave of Artemis) that provides proof that the Greeks identified their goddess Artemis with the Egyptian Bast. Here were found many of the symbols used by Bast, such as statues and paintings of cats and drawings of the moon’s phases. Some time in the earliest phase of their history, the Greeks adopted the goddess Artemis from older Mid-Eastern cultures. As far back as 2,400 years ago, the Greek Artemis was associated with cats; as a beautiful and strong Moon deity, this goddess ruled over the protection of women and children, animals and their young.
Although there are wall paintings of cats in Etruscan cemeteries, Rome itself had little interest in the cat until the end of the Republic. Mosaics and paintings from Pompeii show cats in various actions with humans. In the ruins of this city, at least one woman’s body was found cradling her pet cat.23
The later Romans very probably kept domesticated cats, because the Roman armies later took cats with them as far as Britain.24 They also recognized the cat as an animal sacred to their Moon goddess Diana (a form of the Greek Artemis). Wherever the cult of Diana existed, her worshippers met four times a year at night in mountains, caves, or woodland places far from other people. Because these devotees used remnants of ancient Egyptian goddess rituals, and the Moon and cat symbols, they came to be called witches. They believed that Diana would appear if her name was called seven times at these rituals.25
The feline species Felis silvestris was known to the Gauls only as a ferocious wild animal. The domestic cat probably didn’t arrive in the territory of the Gauls until around the fourth century CE. However, the cat was considered a powerful totem among the Gaelic peoples. In Scotland, Caithness was named after the clan of Catti (cat people), while in Irish mythology, the hero Finn fought against a tribe of “cat-heads.”26 The warriors of the Irish king, known as Carbar of the Cat’s Head, wore the skins of wild cats on their helmets.
In Scotland, when the harvest had been cut, a handful of grain or straw was left unbound in the field; this offering was called the “cat”. In Bohemia they sometimes killed a cat and buried it in a cornfield to protect the crop. In other European countries, the person to cut the last of the grain was called the “tom-cat” or “she-cat”.
No mention of the cat is recorded in India’s history until after the second century BCE. The Sanskrit word for cat was Margaras (hunter, investigator).
European writers don’t mention the cat at all until the first century CE. An Old English name for a tomcat was Gib or Gibbe-cat (hard g). By the tenth century, law in West Wales listed the cat with a definite monetary value. If a cat was killed, the offender had to replace it with a sheep and a lamb.
Clues to a Moon and cat worshipping practice remain in a strange runic wheel-cross built into a wall of a parish church on the Isle of Man. This wheel-cross, about four feet in diameter, is divided into four quarters. Three of the quarters contain images of cats, one lean, one normal, and one fat, while the fourth quarter has the outline of a shrew-mouse. On the upper arm of this cross are two cats, supporting a human face between them. According to Plutarch, a human face between two cats symbolized that the changes of the Moon were affected by wisdom and understanding.
At one time in European history, some ships were called cats, such as certain Norwegian vessels and the English flat-bottomed fire boats of 1804. Possibly this name was used because of the ancient idea that cats and priestesses who used the power of cats could control wind, storm, and waters.
There is only one known representation of a feline-headed female form in North America. About 1,100 years old, this amulet was found in a peat bog in Key Marco Island in Florida, and has been identified as having been part of the Native American Calusa culture in that region.
The Chinese, for some reason, did not attempt to domesticate the cat until about 200 to 400 CE. Other Asian cultures, such as Siam and Burma, valued certain cats or cats of certain breeds with special markings.27
The Eastern systems of astrology use animals to symbolize different years; by their calculation, they consider the year of birth to be important and don’t use the monthly astrology signs known in the west. Suzanne White 28 writes that in Vietnam the cat replaces the Chinese rabbit. The last cycle of the Year of the Cat was in 2012.
Cats are infrequently used in heraldry and on coats of arms, but they do appear. On all the arms of France, Germany, Holland, and Italy, there are probably not a hundred that feature cats.
The first known heraldic cat was the red cat on the arms of the most famous Roman Legion—the Felices seniores. Another Legion had a banner with a green cat on a silver background, while a third carried a banner of a red cat on a pink shield. An alpine Roman troop bore the symbol of a cat with only one eye and one ear.
The cat is on the coat of arms of the clan Chattan of Scotland; the cat, and the motto “All by love, nothing by force,” was on the blazon of the dukes of Bourgogne. Other European coats of arms featuring cats are Dekater, Platen, Kater, Brockman, Chazot, Katte of Vicritz, and Chaurand.
The domesticated cat has had a great many famous supporters and admirers through the centuries. Pope Leo XII had a tabby named Micetto, who was his constant companion. Thomas Wolsey (1471–1530) took his cat everywhere. The French cardinal Richelieu installed dozens of cats at court. Queen Marie Leczinska, wife of the French king Louis XV, loved cats so much that they were given the run of the city. Charles I of England had a black cat whom he adored. When the cat got sick and died, Charles I said his luck was gone; the next day he was arrested. The third Earl of Southampton was imprisoned in the Tower of London in the seventeenth century because he was suspected of treason; his cat climbed the Tower and entered his cell through a chimney to be with him.
In more recent history, felines have also found their friends. Abraham Lincoln found three little cats, almost dead with the cold, in General Grant’s camp during the Civil War; he adopted them. Queen Victoria of England was a cat lover. During the London blitz, Winston Churchill always made certain that his ginger tom Jock was safe. Theodore Roosevelt wrote often about the antics of his two cats, Tom Quartz and Slippers (who had six toes). Harold Wilson, who had a Siamese named Nemo, and several of his cabinet members were also cat lovers. Louis Pasteur, Einstein, and Dr. Schweitzer all had cats; Schweitzer, who was left handed, would use his right hand rather than disturb his cat Sizi. Even the dictator Mussolini and the Russian Nicholai Lenin loved cats. The writer Raymond Chandler often discussed his stories with his black Persian Taki.
An interesting footnote of history says that Sir Isaac Newton had several cats and was always concerned about their comfort. When he noticed that they were unhappy waiting for him to open the door for them, he invented the cat flap, which allowed the cats to come and go as they pleased.
Cats have also had their share of haters. Julius Caesar detested cats, as did Ambroise Pare, the surgeon to the court of Henri III of France. Henri himself fainted at the very sight of a cat. The eighteenth-century grand sultan of Turkey, Abdulhamid, was absolutely terrified of them. Napoleon was so paranoid about cats that he would break into a sweat and go berserk if the tiniest kitten came into his sight. The Frenchmen Voltaire and Georges Cuvier (zoologist) disliked cats immensely. And the English field marshall Lord F. S. Roberts swore he couldn’t breathe if a cat was anywhere near him. The composer Johannes Brahms spent his leisure time shooting cats from his windows with a bow. Dwight Eisenhower gave orders that any cat seen on the grounds of his Gettysburg home was to be shot.
Superstitions
In ancient Egypt, women wore an amulet of a cat so they would be fortunate in love and all things feminine. A woman who wanted children would wear an amulet of a cat and kittens, the number of kittens indicating the number of children she wished to have.
Wives were once made to drink milk that held a cat’s eye stone to prevent them conceiving children while the husband was gone on a journey.
If a black cat crosses your path or enters your house, it will bring good luck. This superstition may have come from ancient Egypt, where the sacred cats (and especially the black ones) were said to bring blessings on any house that took care of them. Egyptian tomb inscriptions have been found that say that the cat will give long life, prosperity, and good health.
You will be extremely rich or lucky in love if you pull off a white hair from a black cat without getting scratched (Lowlands of Brittany).
If a cat crosses your path and does you no harm, you will be very lucky. This superstition comes from medieval times, during the very era when the “devil cat” was so hated. Because the Orthodox church could not peacefully separate the people from Goddess worship and the veneration of Her cats, they linked the cat with their devil. Obviously, this superstition is a twisted version of the older, less negative one.
If a black cat crosses your path, you will have good luck. The black cat is also considered to be an omen of money (England).
If a cat comes into your house, be kind to it, and the devil will not bother you. Another medieval twist of the superstition, this also assumes that the cat and the devil are in league. By inference, if you have the devil on your side, he will go torment someone else.
Whenever the cat of the house is black, the lasses of lovers will have no lack.
If a cat sneezes, luck is coming to the house.
Keep an old cat collared and chained in a shop, and prosperity will be yours. If the cat escaped, the prosperity was believed to go with it (China).
In parts of Yorkshire the wives of fishermen keep black cats at home to ensure their husbands’ safety at sea.
In southern England if a black cat crosses the path of a bride as she leaves church, it will be a fortunate marriage. This is still a popular English belief. Like hiring a chimney sweep to give her a good luck kiss when she exits the church, the bride may also make arrangements to have a black cat led across her path.
If you have a white cat, silver will always be in the house. If you have a dark-colored cat, there will always be gold (an ancient Buddhist superstition).
A tortoiseshell cat brings good fortune (Ireland and Scotland).
A cat with three colors will protect your house against fire.
A cat insures its owner of good luck (China).
People who dislike cats will be carried to the cemetery through rain (Holland).
If you treat a cat badly or neglect it, carry an umbrella to your wedding (Holland).
Cats who have three colors (red, white, and black) are able to predict the approach of storms (Japan).
In many cultures, a sneezing cat means rain.
A wildly running and playful cat is a sign of an approaching storm.
When a cat washes behind its ears, it is pulling down rain.
If a ship’s cat starts running and playing, it means a gale or wind behind them and rain in their faces (an old sailor’s belief).
If a cat scratches a table leg, it means a change in the weather.
If a cat sits with its back to the fire, it means a storm is coming.
To decide whether to say yes or no to a marriage proposal, take three hairs from a cat’s tail. Wrap them in white paper and put this under the doorstep overnight. In the morning carefully open the paper. If the hairs are in a Y-shape, it is yes; if in an N-shape, it is no (the Ozarks).
Cats will deliberately suffocate babies in their cribs. They will suck away the breath of any sleeping or ill person, leaving them weak or even killing them. This erroneous idea was developed during the witch-frenzy and, unfortunately, is still widely held by otherwise intelligent people. Some cats will sit on your chest and get close to your face because they want attention, but they have absolutely no need to suck away your breath.
Cats carry the souls of the dead to the afterworld (Finnish folklore).
If a cat jumps over a coffin, the soul of the deceased will not be able to find its way to heaven (Scotland).
To kill a black cat brings bad luck. Another version is you will get rheumatism if you kill a cat.
If a black cat crosses your path, you will have bad luck (America). In almost every country, except the US, Spain, and Belgium, the black cat is considered to be a lucky omen. It is strange that the bad press from the early Orthodox church still affects the American way of thinking about black cats, but the Europeans have freed themselves from it.
If a cat jumps onto a pregnant woman, the unborn child will die (old Southern belief).
Miners won’t say the word cat while underground. If a cat should appear in the mines, they will refuse to work until the cat is killed.
If you see a strange cat, it means changes in your life, while the sight of a black cat means misfortune or illness (China).
Lightning bolts are sent by angels to rid cats of the evil spirits that possess them, so put cats outside during a storm (Scotland and Slavic countries).
If a cat mews on board a ship, it is a sign of a troublesome voyage (Wales).
The eyes of cats shine in the dark. The eyes of cats don’t shine unless there is light to reflect in them. Witch hunters said this “night shine” reflection was the fires of hell and a sign that cats roamed the world carrying the devil’s influence.
The eyes of a cat will wax and wane with the phases of the Moon.29 The Romans even believed that the cat’s whole body was affected by the phases of the Moon,30 with the body getting thinner or fatter along with the Moon.
Cats are extremely nervous. Not so; they just have superb reflexes and are very sensitive to loud noises. Cats hear two octaves above human levels of hearing. Their ears are so sensitive that loud noises actually cause them pain.
Blood from the tail of a black cat will cure many minor illnesses if rubbed on the affected body part.31 One such disease said to be cured in this manner was shingles.
If a cat sneezes three times, everyone in the house will catch colds.
Many people still believe that humans can catch all kinds of dangerous diseases from cats when, in fact, this isn’t true at all.
To cure any illness in a family, wash the patient and throw the water over a cat. Then drive the cat outside; it will take the illness with it.
For a sty, stroke the eye with the tail of a black cat. Or pluck a hair from the tip of a black cat’s tail when the New Moon rises on a cloudless day and draw the hair across the swollen eyelid nine times (Cornwall).
A similar belief is if you stroke the tail of a black cat across a wart during the month of May only, the wart will go away.
In early times in the southern USA, it was believed that gravy made from a stewed cat would cure consumption.
If the cats desert a house, there will always be sickness there.
No cat that has been purchased will catch mice.
Cats born in May will only catch snakes and worms.
Don’t feed a cat well if you want it to catch mice. This is a terrible belief, and erroneous too. The hunger of a cat has nothing to do with its hunting abilities. Most well-fed cats will hunt avidly simply because of their inborn instincts.
When moving, butter a cat’s paws to make them stay at the new house.
In fact, by the time the cat licked the butter off its paw it was fairly familiar with the new house. Actually, keeping an outside cat indoors for about a week and giving it a bag of fresh catnip will usually keep it from running away in fright. The idea is to let the cat get accustomed to the new place.
Boil the ear of a black cat in the milk of a black sow and wear it on your thumb to become invisible (Albertus Magnus).32
Wear a cat’s (or tiger’s) eye stone to become invisible (Arabia).
Wearing a cat’s eye stone will return the evil eye to the sender (Medieval times).
In the Ozarks and other parts of the southern USA, if a cat washes itself while sitting in a doorway, a member of the clergy will soon arrive. If it only washes its left ear, a female visitor is on the way; if only the right ear, it will be a male visitor.
A cat ensures its owner of good luck (China).
18. Time-Life, Early Europe: Mysteries in Stone.
19. Patricia Dale-Green, Cult of the Cat.
20. In New Guinea, this game is played to encourage the growth of yams; when the string-game is finished, the string is used to tie up the yam stalks. Many other cultures who once used this game as a ritual have forgotten its original purpose, and the string ritual has deteriorated into a children’s game.
21. The British Museum has a huge statue of Bast. She has the forehead and ears of a cat and wears a headdress of sacred asps, each crowned by the Sun.
22. E. A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians.
23. Roni Jay, Mystic Cats.
24. Cat paw prints have been found on Roman tiles in at least one of the British Roman ruins.
25. The ancient Egyptians held the same belief about Isis and Bast.
26. This possibly refers to warriors who wore catskins over their helmets; Katherine Briggs, Dictionary of Fairies.
27. There is one school of thought that believes Asian cats originated in ancient Egypt and were taken to these areas in some manner.
28. Book of Chinese Chance.
29. Plutarch believed this, and W. B. Yeats wrote about it in his poem The Cat & the Moon.
30. Roni Jay, Mystic Cats.
31. This is a medical remedy from the time immediately after the witch hunts, when the church took away the power of the Pagan doctors (particularly the women doctors) and turned it over to “educated” men.
32. This magician was the teacher of St. Thomas Aquinas; Miles Abelard, Physicians of No Value.