Many languages assign
genders to nouns. German, French,
Italian, and others all give their nouns a gender. For example, the German word for dog, der Hund, is masculine, or male. Die Katze,
a cat, is feminine, or female. The
gender of any specific word varies; the German word for moon, der Mund, is masculine but feminine, la luna, in Spanish. Some folks believe that there is mystical
affinity between the word and the gender.
In art, women and cats are often portrayed together. As far back as ancient Egypt the cat-goddess
Bastet was understood to be female. In
our time, “catty,” an adjective meaning “nasty”, is usually understood to be a
female trait (my apologies to the female half of humanity).
This picture of milk-drinking, squirming cats, (check the
buggy) was used as a Christmas card in 1916.
Katheryn (possibly Katheryn Kah) in Perrysburg used a “real picture”
postcard of herself and her cats to send Christmas greetings to her grandfather:
Dear Gran Paw,
I would like to visit you but am
busy with My family.
Merry Christmas
Katheryn
Kittens and little girls rival each other in
cuteness. Katheryn looks like she is
roughly a second grader. Writing
Christmas cards to grandparents is one of the cute tasks girls perform. We can assume the “Family” mentioned in her
message was the family of kittens pictured.
And the picture “fits” because of the cultural association of the female
and the female.
The card was sent to a little town in Shelby County
called Anna, and was addressed to “L. Kah.”
Anna, Ohio, is a town of about 1500 people. Today it has a branch of the giant Honda of
America complex. In the early days, it
was a small farming community.
Originally named Carey’s Station, for town founder J. W. Carey, the town
was renamed Anna, for Anna Carey Thirkield, his daughter, about 1867.
The address on the card show it sent to “L. Kah.” Louis Kah was a big name in Anna. Owner and proprietor of the Kah House hotel,
Kah’s establishment had great reputation as one of the finest hotels in western
Ohio. He once hosted then-governor
William McKinley, who was in the village waiting for a change of trains. Anna
was also the hometown of Lois Lenski, award winning children’s author.
Doubtless there were many cats in Anna in 1916. Whether any of them had their picture taken
is unknown. Also unknown is whether
anyone in Anna, or Perrysburg, sent Christmas cards which featured cats. Although cats sometimes do adorn Christmas
cards, the association is not immediate.
Cats are frequently seen in folktales. Puss-in-Boots we all know, the Cheshrie cat
is famous. “The Cat Came Back” is a well
known children’s song. In Japan, the
“maneki-neko” holds a paw high to attract money. Another Japanese cat character is Hello Kitty,
who has brought in at least $84 billion
for her creators.
There
is only one “Christmas cat” in folklore and that is Jólakötturinn
(Yule Cat) in Iceland. Unfortunately,
the Yule Cat was a bad kitty. Gigantic
in size, it prowled the island looking for children who had not received any
clothes for Christmas, and then ate
them. In a cold country like Iceland,
this may have been a warning to share clothes with the needy. Or:
According to Icelandic tradition, anyone who finished their chores
before Christmas would get new clothes as a reward. Meanwhile, lazy children
who didn’t get their work done would have to face the Jólakötturinn.
Bitter days
and dark nights inspire dark holiday traditions.
Katheryn and her milky pussycats
represent the opposite tradition. Her
cats were bundles of fluff, warm and purring.
Together they stand for the life-giving, nourishing half of
humanity. Always be nice to cats. Or the Yule Cat will start licking its chops!
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