Nine Lives, Thousands of Years: Cats Through History

Cats have lived alongside humans for thousands of years now, but they haven’t always been the same way, or have they? To some, they were gods; to others, pest control; and some even treated them as bad omens. Cats have certainly left their marks on history. But long before cats became familiar figures in our homes, they were wild animals known as Felis silvestris lybica. They preferred solitude, from humans as well as other wildcats. But noticing the amount of vermin that would be lurking near the farmer’s grain, they began settling closer to people. The cats got rodent dinner; the farmers got pest control. This began an interspecies bond that would go down in history.

 

People never domesticated cats; they just domesticated themselves. First, it was about 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent. Farmers stored grain that attracted mice and, thus following, wildcats. The cats ate the mice that ate the grain. They began straying away from the wild, lurking closer to human settlements for easy food. The longer they stayed alongside humans, the more comfortable they became with human environments. The second domestication was in Ancient Egypt about 4000 years ago. People held cats in high regard as they helped catch birds, snakes and rodents. Soon, people regarded them as divine beings and treated them like Gods. They were associated with Bastet, the Goddess of protection and the household. Their devotion to cats is evident in paintings, hieroglyphs, amulets, figurines and much more. Disrespecting cats was seen as a serious offence. Offenders would get punished by having their tongues chopped off and served to the cats. Cats were often mummified, showing that cats were crucial in religious rituals and deemed significant enough for a ceremonial burial.

 

Cats remained useful as vermin killers, but beliefs about them later changed. From being Gods, they soon were considered evil spirits. It began with the Roman Empire spreading Christianity across Europe; older pagan beliefs and associations surrounding animals were reinterpreted through a Christian lens. Preexisting folklore and the new ideologies changed people’s views on cats. Their nocturnal, secretive and independent behaviour made cats seem mysterious. The Lincolnshire Cat is a British folklore story about a father and his son who threw rocks at a black cat. The cat scurried to a nearby cottage that was suspected to belong to a witch. The next day, they saw the woman and noticed that she had bruises and injuries in the same places where the cat had been hurt. It was believed they could transform into witches. Especially black cats; cats were written as sidekicks of witches. This enforced the idea of them being evil, a bad omen and a symbol of witchcraft. Most of this attitude was caused by word of mouth among locals. Cats were still fairly liked across many places. But 1233 was the final nail in the coffin when Pope Gregory IX explicitly tied black cats to devil worship in his papal decree, Vox in Rama.

The expansion of trade and agriculture gave cats more places to spread. Traders and sailors carried cats on ships, mainly because they controlled rodents that would eat the food supply and chew through the ropes. From ports, cats spread into farms, settlements and cities. Where the people went, the cats went, but this time less as a working mouser and more as a human companion. Early cats weren’t bred, but that soon changed in the 19^th century with the rise of cat shows. The first major cat show was held in London at the Crystal Palace in July 1871. Harrison Weir was a cat lover famously known as the ‘Father of the Cat Fancy’. He tried to elevate working mousers into elegant beings by introducing cat shows. He wrote the Standards of Excellence as a rulebook. These winning criteria created a surge of people breeding cats to achieve the desired features.

 

While accompanying humans, cats turned into muses. In literature, characters like Puss in Boots and the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland used cat characteristics to show mystery, cleverness, mischief or independence. In art, it started with the Egyptian representation of Bastet. Later, similar to literature, cats stood for mystery, mischief, and independence. Artists such as Leonardo da Vinci studied and sketched cats to capture their graceful, fluid movements, famously describing even the smallest feline as “a masterpiece.” Louis Weir became popular for his illustrations of anthropomorphic cats. He started with realistic cat depictions but gradually transitioned into giving cats humorous human-like behaviours. In advertising, marketers made good use of the connection people had with cats. Cats evoke warmth, humour and relatability, helping brands establish an immediate bond with consumers. A good cat representation was often used in advertising beyond pet-related contexts. In recent times, cats have taken over meme culture. LOLcats, Nyan Cat and Grumpy Cat became sensations. Cats became central to memes, GIFs, reaction images and viral videos, often with captions that gave them human emotions and personalities.

 

Different societies gave cats different meanings based on their beliefs, needs and fears. Their journey also shows how human civilisation, trade and cultural exchange helped cats spread across the world. Perhaps the most remarkable part is that though humans kept shifting their views on cats, cats remained the same. Unlike other animals, modern cats have had very minimal changes in their genetic makeup compared to their ancestors. Besides the fur patterns and becoming more social, they have remained more or less the same as the F. s. lybica.