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)
