"A charm or talisman of the cat greatly varies from one country to another ... what is lucky in America, is unlucky in England. Tell me, though I doubt anyone possibly can, is it any wonder the cat is such an unfathomable mystery to man?" ~ Duval Stallings, From a letter written by my beloved late father - a connoisseur of mythology and legend
The White Cat Continued
The Charm: Charm, talisman and amulet are words which tend to be used rather loosely and interchangeably, and the difference between them is largely one of emphasis. It is claimed that all three have the power both to repel and attract good; but whereas the repelling powers of the amulet and talisman are stressed, in the case of the charm is laid on its power to attract good fortune. The word charm originally meant incantation, but later it was stretched to include any object or action which was believed to possess the power of the incantation or spell.
Live cats have been used as charms, and in Chinese shops are kept collared and chained. The older and uglier these cats are, the greater the luck they bring their owners and it is assumed that, if they escaped, prosperity would go with them.
In Europe, black cats predominate as lucky charms. In Scotland and Ireland, a stray tortoiseshell cat settling in one's home is a good omen, and in some places a cat with double claws is said to bring good luck. There is, furthermore, a Buddhist belief that light colored cats ensure there will always be silver in the house, and dark colored cats there will always be gold.
As cats became increasingly prized as luck bringers, the problem arose as to how they could be acquired. An eighteenth century magazine gave the following account of a charm by means of which numerous cats could be captured:
In the new moon gather the herb Nepe and dry it in the heat of the sun; gather vervain in the hour 8, and only expose it to the air while the moon is under the earth. Hang these together in a net in a convenient place, and when one of them has scented it her cry will soon call those about within hearing; and they will rant and run about leaping and capering to get at the net, which must be hung or placed so that cannot accomplish it, or they will tear it in pieces.
Vervain is sometimes call the "holy herb" from its use in ancient sacred rites. It was supposed to cure the bites of rabid animals and to arrest diffusion of the poison. Near Bristol there is a "Field of Cats," so called because a large number of cats were drawn together there by this charm.
A further problem arose for those who having acquired good luck in the form of a cat, then found that they had to move house. The charm most commonly used to make a cat settle in a new home was the buttering of its paws.
In Japan a popular charm is a "beckoning" cat, and the following legend is attached to a cat shrine in the grounds of the temple known as
Gotoku-ji. This temple was originally a very poor one, no more than a thatched hut run by proverty stricken and half starved monks. The master priest had a cat of which he was fond, and shared with it such little food as he had. One day the cat squatted by the roadside and when a half a dozen Samurai appeared on splendid horses, it looked up at them and raised one of its paws to its ear, as if it were beckoning to them. The noble cavaliers pulled up and, as the cat continued to beckon, they followed it into the temple. Torrential rain forced them to stay for a while, so the priest gave them tea and expounded Buddhist doctrine. Later, one of the Samurai, Lord Li, regularly visited the old priest to receive religious instruction from him. Eventually, Li endowed the temple with a large estate and it became the property of his family. Visitors who pass under the temple's impressive gateways, walk through its broad avenues of towering trees and enjoy the beautifully laid out gardens, discover, near the cemetery of the Li family, the little shrine of the beckoning cat which still draws pilgrims from all parts of Tokyo.
As in the case of talismanic cats, the live animal used as a charm was often replaced by its image, which was found equally effective. At the entrances to their shops and restaurants, the Japanese place clay, papiermache or wooden figures of a seated cat with one paw raised to the side of its face. Such cats are believed to promote prosperity, their beckoning paws inviting passersby to come in and do business.
Sometimes this charm consists of a single porcelain beckoning cat; sometimes an earthenware one will have kittens crawling over her. The beckoning kittens would presumably add power to the charm.
The beckoning cat provides a good example of the way the use of charms and talismans overlap, for although it is most commonly used to attract good fortune, it can also be trusted to ward off evil. This charm is used by cocoon breeders to protect the silkworms against rats. It is widely used as a children's toy, but they also wear beckoning cats tied round their waists to protect them against pain and sickness. The Japanese share with the Egyptians belief in the power of the word, for not only the image of the beckoning cat, but also the ideograph representing its name, regarded as efficacious.
Egyptian cat charms are prolific. There were the fertility charms in the form of cat families, which often bore invocations to Bastet as a mother. The sacred eyes were not only apotropaic, for they were the eyes of Horus the sun god, who was the source of health and happiness.
Bastet had much more than good luck to bestow. Probably because of her identification with the sun eye, she was thought of as the "Possessor of Life." A tomb inscription proclaims that she
gives life, prosperity and health every day, and long life and beautiful old age. Sometimes the power of the charm is directed towards an individual, as in the case of a seated cat which is wearing an engraved utchat as a pendant, and has its base inscribed with the words:
May Bastet, the great Lady of Bubastis, cause Haremhab...to live and a crouching cat in white limestone is inscribed
May Bastet give a happy New Year to Pedubaste.
No wonder cats are thought of as charms, since the goddess they represent has so much good fortune to bestow.
The Musician: One mixed blessing bestowed on human beings by cats is their music. Cat language (their mews and meows) contain sixty-three (63) notes, and the name "cats' melody" that we give to discordant sounds has arisen from the yowling and caterwauling that splits the silence of moonlit nights.
The cat has always been connected with music and, perhaps because its body vibrates with deep purring, with musical instruments. By nature, the cat is a player - as dragonflies, mice and birds know to their cost. A legend explains that the first cat was an offspring of the union of a lion and a monkey - from the monkey the cat inherited its playfulness.
No one seems to know why the cat is specially associated with fiddles. It may be something to do with the fact that the strings of violins are made of so-called "catgut" - a tough cord made from the intestines of animals, usually sheep and never from cats. No satisfactory explanation has been given as to why violin strings have acquired this name. The word may possibly be a corruption of "kit-gut" - kit being an old word for small fiddle.
Cat orchestras have been a popular subject among illustrators of children's books, who frequently depict cats conducting, singing and playing every kind of instrument. At one time there were people who dressed up as cats and exhibited them as musicians. The last public cat concert appears to have been given by a Venetian in London in 1789.
In the fifteenth century, the terrible cat organs were invented. Twenty cats would be confined in narrow cases, unable to move. Their protruding tails were tied by cords attached to the keyboard of an organ, so that when the keys were pressed, the cords were raised and the cats' tails pulled to make them mew. Later this organ was improved on, and various other instruments were constructed whose music was provided by tortured cats. For several centuries, the cries of suffering cats was found
entertaining by humans.
In the absence of real cats, their images have been used to produce music. A collection of musical instruments in New York includes an ancient Japanese temple instrument, consisting of what has been called a tiger but looks like a cat, lying on a decorated box carved from a solid block of wood. A raised saw toothed spine runs down the center of the cat's back. A character is cut on its forehead which means "pleasure." At certain points in temple services, a rattling sound was produced by scraping the cat's spine with a stick, and its head was struck on the "pleasure" mark.
Music is also produced from the body of a cat in a Javanese instrument called a
saron, which is made in the form of a cat sitting with outstretched paws and open mouth. Parallel bars on its back are struck with a rod, as a xylophone is played. Presumably the open mouth of the cat is intended to give the impression that the music is vocal.
The sistrum - a kind of rattle consisting of a loop pierced by four loose rods and mounted on a handle - is an instrument closely associated with cats. Not only was the sistrum an emblem unique to the cat goddess, but a sacred cat usually formed part of it, either perching on top of the handle or crowning the loop. Mostly single cats adorn sistra, but some suckle a kitten or play with a bird. Often the sistrum handle carries the head of Hathor, the cow goddess.
Sistra were widely used in Egyptian religious rites and when, shortly before the Christian era began, the worship of Isis was introduced to Italy, these instruments were used in Roman ritual, too. At Portici (near Vesuvius), two paintings were found showing a priest of Isis and a kneeling woman rattling sistra. The central object of the rite is a cat seated on an outsized sistrum.
The cats found on sistra were presumed to be incarnations of Bastet. An amulet showing a cat with a lute is inscribed,
Bast-Re is the Lord of Happiness. But through her merging with the cow goddess, Hathor, who was known as "The Lady of Music and Mistress of Song," Bastet was worshipped as a goddess of pleasure. Hathor was described as "merry as Bastet," and in the orgiastic festival which they shared, there was much singing, dancing, shouting, rattling of sistra, clashing of crotola and beating of drums.
No one who has observed the luxuriating sensuality of a cat can doubt that it is a pleasure loving animal. The grace and coordination of its movements are only equaled, in the human sphere, by dancers. But the only time a cat can strictly be said to dance is on those occasions when it prances around and leaps through the air, partnered by a ghost though, in fact, by an unseen insect.
A bas relief in a Roman museum shows a woman playing a lyre and trying to teach a cat to dance. She has hung two dead birds from a branch just above the cat's head, so that it prances about on its hind legs.
Dancing women participating in the Sebasian Mysteries often carried cat crowned sistra. They were used in Circle Dances, which symblolized the motion of the planets around the sun and formed part of the sacred rites of star worshipers. Dancers and singers were present at most Egyptian feasts. Funeral processions accompanying the statue of the deceased were headed by dancers who moved to the music of singers bringing up the rear. Behind the singers stands a little pillar with the head of a cat representing Bastet as the presiding deity. Nearby is a figure of a nude dwarf, representing the god, Bes, a divinity of music, dance and pleasure.
Amulets often combine Bes' image with that of Bastet and sacred cats. One shows Bastet, with a cat's head, legs and tail, carrying her three usual emblems. On her right stands the figure of Bes playing a lyre, to her left crouches a cat which is biting the head of a bird. Another amulet shows Bes playing a lute, with cats seated as supporters on both sides of him.
It is significant that all three cat associated deities of music and pleasure were also connected with war. Bastet wore the aegis of Sekhmet, the goddess of battle who belched fire. Hathor was the most bloodthirsty of war goddesses and Bes was a terrifying god of slaughter. Cat sistra were used militarily in Egypt as a means of summoning the troops. It seems extraordinary that an instrument symbolizing harmony should be used to summon the forces of war and discord, but perhaps this fact is related to the dissonance for which the
cats' melody is justly famed.
