Question Strand

How Has the Human-Animal Relationship Changed Over History?

My original topic was an exploration of the nature of the relationships that exist between humans and animals, specifically the psychological implications of owning pets as well as the emotional bond between humans and the animals they choose to share their homes with.  That said, a lot of the focus of my research has been oriented toward the most common human companions: cats and dogs.

Upon further reflection of my research, though, I realized that while many of the psychological aspects of human-animal relationships are touched upon, there is little about the historical contributions of pets.  So I made a list of questions to help explore the topics that are, so far, lacking in my exploration to further understand the complex relationships between humans and animals.  Among them were these:

Why do people choose the animals they do?

What do both parties get out of the relationship?

How has the human-animal relationship changed over history?

How has our relationship changed with cats?

Through thoughtful contemplation on these questions, and matching them up with what I’d found so far, I slowly began to realize that the one most drawing my attention, and which touched in some way upon all the other topics I was still left wondering about, was “How has the human-animal relationship changed over history?”

I did know something about the topic—in high school, I wrote some articles about Halloween symbols, specifically cats as demons or witches’ familiars.  And I’d heard somewhere that there’s cultures that eat cats and dogs just like we eat cows and pigs.  And I knew there was an Egyptian god who had the face of a cat, but I never took much time to wonder what that Egyptian god’s name was, or why Egyptians worshipped cats, or why some people are disgusted by eating cat or dog flesh and some people just aren’t.

After further research, though, it seems that the history of cats has been much more controversial than the history of dogs.  They’ve been worshipped.  They’ve been slaughtered.  And these days, it seems like cats the subject of “cat people” links to some immediate psychological thought of, again, worship.  Or cat hoarding.  I guess it depends how you look at it.

At any rate, I think for this portion of the essay, I’ll spend more time looking at the emotional reactions humans have historically had to cats, how cats may have shaped lives and cultures before now, and how cats are viewed in the media and the public eye today.

Commonly, when we think of the history of cats and what they’ve been doing since they first showed up and started killing rats for us, we think of Egypt.  But we’ve found cat fossils in Cyprus that go back to pre-Egyptian times, indicating that cats were domesticated and perhaps worshipped before Egyptians ever discovered them.  “If the cat had not been intentionally buried, then the bones would have become disarticulated and dispersed” (Vigne).  So the history of the cat is actually much deeper and more involved in the tangle of human history than most people realize.  Cats were not only kept around for their hunting abilities—they were loved enough to have their own burial sites.

There has been a constant love-hate relationship with the cat over time.  It has woven itself into literature and fascinated poets and writers alike (Nikolajeva), myself included.  There’s something mystical about the cat, the way it can disappear for weeks and then one morning you’ll wake up and your long-lost pet is sitting on your couch, or on the porch railing, blinking slowly.  Or you’ll be petting your furry friend before you go to sleep, and the instant you turn off the lights, the cat is staring at you with eyes that glow red in the dark.  My little brother thinks cats can magically transform into aliens that might eat him when he’s asleep.  I admit, I might have had some part in making him believe that, but it’s not my fault.  Cats have always been associated with magic.

“The matagot of French folklore, a black tomcat, made his owner wealthy.  Nineteenth-century English sailors’ wives kept a black cat in the house to ensure their husbands’ safety at sea.  An old rhyme assures lasses that they will not lack lovers if the cat in their house is black.  In Wales, black cats keep trouble from the house, and it is lucky when a strange cat strays in and a bad omen when one is lost” (Rogers 59).

Cats were popular subjects for art during the Renaissance, mostly as religious symbols.  “Their decorative value was generally noticed long before their charm as companion, and painters interested in portraying everyday life naturally included a cat sitting on a chair in a bedroom or looking for table scraps in a banquet scene.”  And although cats are usually recognized for their beauty and grace, Renaissance painters usually depicted them as chubby, awkward, and sources for entertainment (Rogers 27).  While it was great to make fun of cats—and it still is—the fact remains that they had some recognition at this point in history, art, and human consciousness.

The love of cats, though, has always had another side to it.  As much as cats have been thought of as godlike, they have also been associated with evil.  “Although we may now view witchcraft as quaint, attractive, or even religious, feline accomplices to witches in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were by definition agents of Satan” (Rogers 59).  Like witches, cats were often burned for their “crimes.”

Even today, there are about as many cat-haters as there are cat-lovers (or, “cat people”), and I can’t help but wonder if the extreme turns of cats’ history has something to do with that.  Those who love cats are often criticized of being selfish or boring or simply “crazy.  “The degree to which some owners bond with their animals is notorious—anthropomorphizing them to great extent” (MacGregor 18).  But I guess the same can be said about dogs.

Then again, for some reason, dog owners aren’t as criticized for loving their pets as cat owners are.  “Attacks on cats can be more readily adapted to self-righteousness than attacks on dogs.  Because they were perceived as less congenial than dogs, they were more likely to be suspected of practicing magic or conveying poison in their health” (Rogers 153).  I guess no matter how history has shaped or continues to shape the relationships between cats and their humans, cats and dogs will never be viewed equally.  Not even in America.

I think, in reference to the research I’ve already done, the question that still lingers is, “What does this relationship between humans and animals mean?”  Certainly, there is plenty of evidence to support the fact that this relationship does, indeed, exist.  It always has.  Humans have depended on animals since the very point in history when we stopped being animals.

In a study I read about farmers and cats, I found that cats tend to only exist where human settlements have been established.  A theory as to why certain areas are overrun with felines is that the cats come from old farm houses that are being demolished.  I’ve experienced that in my neighborhood.  When the authorities tore down one of the last farms and started building blocks of three-story houses that all shared the same cramped backyards, they put up a tractor crossing sign.  With the corn fields deteriorating, a population jump from small town to civilized society, and more drivers speeding down our little country road, I don’t think the tractor sign is really about all the tractor traffic.  We don’t have tractor traffic anymore, but we do have a problem with cats being run over on that road.

For a cat in a rural area, the ideal place of residency is on a farm, where there are mice to hunt and plenty of small places they can squeeze into for shelter.  Though most farm owners don’t consider these cats to be their pets, the cats seem to consider themselves pets, to some extent.  For whatever reason, cats civilizations are dependent on humans.  Cats only set up their establishments where humans are.  Furthermore, the humans who are, to any extent, bothered by this cat takeover, are statistically unlikely to throw the cats off the property, stop feeding them, or whatever it is people do when they don’t want an animal.  For whatever reason, the cats and humans are willing to coexist, however annoyed both parties may be with one another.

So what does this relationship mean?

To answer that question, I intend to interview pet owners and animal shelter volunteers who not only work closely with pets, but also bear witness to the relationship that exists between humans and their pets, families and their pets, and relationships from one pet to the other, such as instances where a family buys one dog so the other isn’t lonely.  More than that, though, there is the question of why we go about choosing the specific pets we do, what goes into choosing to have a pet in the first place, and why have a pet at all.  I think answering these questions can give us a better understanding of ourselves as humans or animals or whatever we want to consider ourselves as.  I think, too, that any amount of understanding leads to a greater acceptance of compassion, and that’s what the world needs, isn’t it?