Nicron #77 26 февраля 1998

Miscellaneous - cats in the past.

        Fluffy saviors
            Humanity (2)


(R) Leonid Korolev
Illustrations - (c) Alexey Antipov (Goblin)


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          * Hunter, Witch, Goddess .*
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          Changes of cat stories.


 The cat can observe endless - does not matter, she played with
FUR Loskutov, basking on the rug at the battery OR Diligently 
flushes his brilliant fur LANGUAGE. LITTLE find people, 
indifferent to these creatures. However, the history of the 
genus CAT did No less interesting than they are.


 The exact origin of domestic cat scientists still do not know. 
It is believed that it was the birthplace of North Africa, and 
the direct ancestor - buckskin (Nubian) cat. In support of this 
hypothesis is the fact that the nature of the Nubian cats - 
quiet and urovnoveshenny, it is easy to contact, in contrast to 
the wild European Forest cats, which many researchers are also 
those in the grandparent of our home Murka. In addition, the 
skeleton of the domestic cat is almost exactly identical in 
structure to the skeleton "Nubiyki.

 But there is also wild Caucasian steppe cat, and Pallas' cat, 
which at the beginning of the century compared to the set of 
parameters with a home Persian cat and found many obshego and 
abide in the Karakum Desert, Iran and Persia dune cat ...

 Only recently, scientists have found that and buckskin, and 
dunes, and other southern species of feline ancestors - the 
only sub- the same kind of European cats. Their domesticated 
many centuries ago, the people of Central Asia and Egypt. A 
pzzhe when the Romans penetrated into Western Europe, there 
were other kinds of domestic cats - the result of interbreeding 
with the squat, stocky, powerful northern wild cats, they gave 
a strong, large-scale offspring. Oriental same species - for 
example, Siamese cats - to avoid mating with a heavy northern 
counterparts, retained the grace and miniaturization.

 When a man has tamed a cat - a complex question. Anyway, it 
did not happen earlier Neolithic - because that is exactly when 
agriculture was born, there was a need to maintain protection 
against pests and rodents results of labor of farmers - and it 
is here that person would need a cat with its magnificent 
hunting instiktami. The age of this business alliance, we now 
can estimate only by the archaeological finds. For example, in 
the Sahara, near Memphis, in the burial age of 2.5 thousand 
years, archeologists found picture of a cat hung with ornaments.

 However, the peak of his fame reached the cats in Egypt, in a 
3-2 millennia BC, during the Middle Kingdom. There, they were 
considered sacred animals, killing a cat was punishable by 
death penalty. Himself the supreme god Ra appeared as often on 
the images with a cat's head. A central place in the Egyptian 
pantheon occupied by the cat-goddess Bast - Goddess of 
fertility and motherhood. The City of Bast was Bubastis, it 
housed and feline cemetery of Egypt. Yes, yes, the Egyptians 
buried cat on a special cemetery for them, mumifitsiruya them, 
like dead Pharaohs. Only in the last century, archaeologists 
have found cat burial in Bubastis, where rested hundreds of 
thousands of mummified animals and treated them according 
varvaski: 300,000 cat mummies, delivered by ship to Liverpool, 
were put on fertilizer English fields.

 Mourning for the Egyptians, the cat kept as strictly as in
deceased relatives. Cats were not allowed to export abroad,
soldiers and travelers were obliged, if they happen to in 
traveling beyond the borders of the country to meet the cat, 
immediately forward it to his native Egypt.




 Following the Egyptians cats interested in the Greeks, whose 
crops also suffered from invasions of rodents. Having learned 
how useful cats in protecting the barns, they have by hook or 
by crook to get his baleen custody. The most screwed way it was 
stealing cat the Egyptians - began an era of smugglers and 
profiteers. Those caught stealing immediately sentenced to 
death, to the same Egyptians will soon adapt himself steal cats 
from Greece ago in Egypt - but gradually caught on the animal, 
and in 6 century BC on Greek coins, a picture of a cat. Cats

mentioned in the writings of Herodotus, Aristotle, Plutarch.
 Much later, with the carts Roman legions penetrated the cat
Europe. Prior to that, farmers in North and Central Europe used 
to protect the stocks of grain and weasels Guenette - little 
animals of viverrovyh family, not too suitable, however, for 
this role because of the peculiar smell. In Scotland it has 
become not only guardian of the grain, but also a brave warrior 
- images of cats decorated with emblems and standards of many 
Scottish birth. Britain became the real center of breeding cats 
in Europe. Already in 940, Prince of Wales by Howell, issued a 
decree according to which a any settlement had to live cat.

 Worthy of a cat, according to this decree shall be good to see 
and hear, have teeth and claws, catch mice, diligently to 
educate Kittens do not eat them, and often require the cat. 
Such is the "right" cat costs amounted gobies or colt.  Peak of 
popularity in Europe, cats have achieved in the 12 century - 
century invasion of Europe, black rats, who came from Central 
Asia, carrying the plague on European cities and villages.

 However, fast forward briefly to the ancient East. In China, 
the word "Mao" (cat) was included in the language already in 
the 6 th century BC It not only was considered the guardian of 
the harvest, but also the patroness of motherhood: in many 
Chinese provinces within 11 days after births over the door of 
the room hung a bunch of new mothers cat's fur: it was to bring 
happiness to the newborn. Chinese cat reached and Japan, where 
for several centuries, prized so high that they were available 
only nobility.  These cats, however, was not good for catching 
mice - they were conditioned to have delicious food with silver 
and gold plate ... People of the rank of simpler, for which the 
cat was not available, acquires feline images, sculptures, 
paintings - and used them ... raspugivaniya for rodents, 
assuming that the mouse will frighten painted cats, just like 
the real thing. In 18 century a special imperial decree banned 
all subjects to Japanese Emperor torture, maim, sell, buy, hide 
cat under heavy penalty. 



 Such practices, however, is not respected everywhere and 
always. Truly scary times for the feline tribe became the 
European Middle Ages. In the early 13 th century Franciscan 
monk, Berthold von Regensburg in his sermons, declared that the 
cat's breath exudes a plague.

 Cat and associated with love magic: from the cat's brain 
healers prepare love ointments that lubricate the appropriate 
places. In the 15 th century in Switzerland, one of the recipes 
from the voodoo Impotence required to feed the sick dishes made 
from meat castrated in his childhood cat.

 Only in the 19 century the cat was rehabilitated: in 1808 in 
Vienna is published in "Natural History for school teachers and 
devotees of this science," whose author, D. Funke, proves the 
necessity of cats as guards grain stocks. Soon in France 
enacted a decree by which every merchant ship had to be at 
least two cats.  Well, what about Russia? Here, domestic cats 
came too late - in 12-13 century. And immediately became a 
highly valued: according to code of laws 14 th century, for 
stealing a cat was set in a fine four times higher than that 
for stealing a cow! 

              ELENA Vyazemsky.
              February 18, 1995 Newspaper "EXTRA" N7 (143)