THE CAT 



95 



XIII. The Cat as a Mummv 



We cannot take leave of the cat without 

 visiting with amazement and profound respect 

 its mummied ancestors as they appear in vari- 

 ous museums ; with amazement, because the 

 ancient Egyptians, highly developed in many 

 ways, held the cat in such esteem that they 

 embalmed its body ; and with respect, because 

 of the conscientious manner in which the em- 

 balming was done, so that after thousands of 

 years these mummied bodies can be brought 

 to light exactly as they were when buried. 



It has not, so far, been decided why the 

 Egyptians regarded the cat as a divinity. 

 According to Plutarch there is an affinity 

 between this animal and the moon, first, be- 

 cause the cat is a nocturnal animal ; secondly, 

 because it brings into the world first one little 

 one, then two, three, four, five, up to twenty- 

 eight, the number of days in the lunar month. 

 Perhaps this latter reason is the cause of its 

 adoration as a divinity. In the grotto of Arte- 

 mis, near the ancient Bubastis, there are 

 several cats which were buried there with 

 great ceremony in the midst of costly fetes. 

 Herodotus relates that as soon as the cat of 

 an Egyptian died profound sadness took pos- 

 session of the whole family, who put on deep 

 mourning. The noble dead was laid out in 

 state, embalmed with precious spices, and 

 taken to Bubastis, where (as well as at Mem- 

 phis) obsequies were performed which often 

 cost as much as nine thousand ancrcs. 



Mummies of cats which had li\cd in the 

 temple of the goddess Pasht were treated 

 with extreme veneration, and we find in their 



tombs great numbers of gold ornaments bear- 

 ing the same letters as those found in the 

 tombs of kings. Also there are mummies of 

 women which bear the inscription tec/tan, — 

 cat, — signifying that they were protected by 

 the goddess of that animal. 



Dr. Etienne Geoffroy was the first man to 

 study the skeleton of an Egyptian mummy cat. 

 He discovered that the animal differed in no 

 particular from the domestic cat of Europe and 

 America, — a discovery which was contested by 

 another learned naturalist named Ehrenberg, 

 who insisted that the existing mummies were 

 the remains of the Abyssinian cat in its wild 

 state, an opinion shared by Blainville. The 

 latter very learned professor of anatomy made 

 a searching study of these mummies, in which 

 he distinguished three species, — the Felis 

 Caligata, the Bubastis, and the Cliaus. The 

 two first are still foimd in a wild state in cer- 

 tain parts of Egypt. Careful search made by 

 learned Egyptologists shows that the linen 

 wrapped around all the cat mummies that have 

 so far been found is of fine quality, the same 

 as that wrapped around kings. 



In these days there is no such thing as 

 embalming a cat ; instead of that we sweep 

 them on to the manure heap or fling them 

 into the water. No one ever dreams of bury- 

 ing them, unless in some very exceptional case, 

 when a petted cat is put to rest in a dogs' 

 cemetery. Nevertheless, one cat is recorded 

 as having been embalmed and mummified in 

 the fourteenth century. It was Petrarch's cat, 

 which died in 1374, and was long seen incased 

 above the door of the poet's house at Vaucluse. 



