Tyburn
01-05-2010, 09:11 PM
The twin nature of Cats and how it has been encorperated into Historical Culture. Several major Cultures have focused, or used cats within their mystical world view. With each culture the Ikon of the cat causes division, between the good, the beutiful, the refined and the bad, the wild, the dangerous. The main reason for this may well be because cats are not like other animals that have become closely connected to human culture. The majority of animals are either pack animals, in which case they like company, they are either dominant or submissive, or they are untameable but creatures of relatively low intelligence.
Cats are essentially nocternal and lone hunters, and yet they are intelligent and able to relate to Humans like other wild animals are incapable. This means with something like a dog, you can teach it to do what you ask...but a cat will decide what it wishes to do for itself, and it cant be stopped.
Bastet
In Egypt the African cats still, to this day run wild in the major suberban cities. These Ferral cats were viewed in two different ways by the Ancient Egyptians. The first way was the Lioness. A cruel godess with the face of a Lion, like those that were on the middle african plains. It is to her that mummified cats (cats upon their deaths) were offered. But she is half of a coin, because the same Diety is also known as Basset. Basset is always shown in the full form of a cat, the type of slender and beautiful cat that you might keep as a pet.
Black Cats
In European Culture the Black Cat is associated with evil and superstitution. A product of the middle ages, its often considered that demons and devils visited earth in the form of cats. These cats would be rounded up and hurled from the tops of buildings, and the people who cared for them, would be charged with witch-craft and burned at the stake.
of course less then 200 years after the last continental outbreak of cat killing, we now have more then 3million pet cats in England alone
Maneki Neko
In Oriental Cultures the Cat of Good Fortune adornes Bhudist Temples. The Legends are founded on a Monk who showed a great deal of care for a cat as his temple dwindled in numbers, convinced that one day the cat would return the gesture. The cat is said to have saved some very important knights from death during a thunderstorm by indicating the Knights should take refuge in the Temple and not under a tree which is subsequently distoryed by lightning. This brings prosperity to the Temple. Ever since the waving (paw raised) cat has been an ikon for Japan.
But the Rural people also have a legend, of exactly the opposite type of cat. The Cat of Doom :laugh: The cat of doom is a shapeshifting monster, who brings wrack and ruin. The Legend begins when a rural couple with a beloved cat, notice that their cat has dissapeared, and frantically search everywhere for it. At night the Women would ask to be alone. One day Her Husband did not respect her wishes and went to her during this time, to find her eating mice and rats. Then it became clear that it wasnt the cat who was ever missing, but the Woman, whose place had been taken by a malicious shape shifting cat, capable of taking on human form.
Large Felines
American Cultures generally tend to look towards the larger cat speicies because of a lack of the small ferral types, and because early Civilization that was non primative inhabited areas of land covered in Dense Forrest and thus only home of the large wild cats, like the Jaguar for example.
Of the four cultural streams which play on the Ikon of the cat, this is the only culture that manages to have both ying and yang actually in the same Ikon. The Jaguar, the Hunters health, but get to close, and it will devour you, kill or hunt it and if you are successful you bring bad omens upon yourself.
Cats are essentially nocternal and lone hunters, and yet they are intelligent and able to relate to Humans like other wild animals are incapable. This means with something like a dog, you can teach it to do what you ask...but a cat will decide what it wishes to do for itself, and it cant be stopped.
Bastet
In Egypt the African cats still, to this day run wild in the major suberban cities. These Ferral cats were viewed in two different ways by the Ancient Egyptians. The first way was the Lioness. A cruel godess with the face of a Lion, like those that were on the middle african plains. It is to her that mummified cats (cats upon their deaths) were offered. But she is half of a coin, because the same Diety is also known as Basset. Basset is always shown in the full form of a cat, the type of slender and beautiful cat that you might keep as a pet.
Black Cats
In European Culture the Black Cat is associated with evil and superstitution. A product of the middle ages, its often considered that demons and devils visited earth in the form of cats. These cats would be rounded up and hurled from the tops of buildings, and the people who cared for them, would be charged with witch-craft and burned at the stake.
of course less then 200 years after the last continental outbreak of cat killing, we now have more then 3million pet cats in England alone
Maneki Neko
In Oriental Cultures the Cat of Good Fortune adornes Bhudist Temples. The Legends are founded on a Monk who showed a great deal of care for a cat as his temple dwindled in numbers, convinced that one day the cat would return the gesture. The cat is said to have saved some very important knights from death during a thunderstorm by indicating the Knights should take refuge in the Temple and not under a tree which is subsequently distoryed by lightning. This brings prosperity to the Temple. Ever since the waving (paw raised) cat has been an ikon for Japan.
But the Rural people also have a legend, of exactly the opposite type of cat. The Cat of Doom :laugh: The cat of doom is a shapeshifting monster, who brings wrack and ruin. The Legend begins when a rural couple with a beloved cat, notice that their cat has dissapeared, and frantically search everywhere for it. At night the Women would ask to be alone. One day Her Husband did not respect her wishes and went to her during this time, to find her eating mice and rats. Then it became clear that it wasnt the cat who was ever missing, but the Woman, whose place had been taken by a malicious shape shifting cat, capable of taking on human form.
Large Felines
American Cultures generally tend to look towards the larger cat speicies because of a lack of the small ferral types, and because early Civilization that was non primative inhabited areas of land covered in Dense Forrest and thus only home of the large wild cats, like the Jaguar for example.
Of the four cultural streams which play on the Ikon of the cat, this is the only culture that manages to have both ying and yang actually in the same Ikon. The Jaguar, the Hunters health, but get to close, and it will devour you, kill or hunt it and if you are successful you bring bad omens upon yourself.