The Internet is obsessed with cats. This fact was clearly illustrated when Google built a neural network that was able to learn what the concept of a cat was from Internet images without it being previously programmed into the machine. “A lot of cute pet videos are also really popular, but they are not quite as popular as cats. Part of that is an addiction thing. People get mentally addicted to stuff and on the Internet you will never know what that will be. At the moment it is cats,” University of Idaho senior Sharayah Wilcock said.
Cats have affected human culture through the Internet and even human history. Cats were first domesticated by humans during the Neolithic Revolution approximately 12,000 years ago.
“I think that there is a certain amount of truth in the joke that cats domesticated us because one of the things that everyone says about a cat is that they are very independent. Cats tend to be independent, as a result that you don’t tend to see a lot of the spectrum that cats are wonderful and cats are horrible as seen in dogs,” Ellen Kittell, an associate professor of the History Department said.
Cats fall on a whole spectrum of being gods as in the case of the Egyptian god Bastet. In ancient Egypt, Bastet was worshiped as a goddess of protection against diseases and is also referred to as the Eye of Ra.
Kittell said like many Egyptian gods and goddesses, Bastet was part human and part animal, with the head of a cat and the body of a woman. Cats also take on godlike qualities due to the belief and saying that cats have nine lives.
“That’s one of those hard things we can’t pinpoint an origin,” Kittell said. “The fact that it is in the culture when we begin to write things down suggests that it is an idea that number one: was widespread, and number two: was in the oral tradition. The fact that we have visual representations of cats as gods may be a suggestion that we have an issue of reincarnation. But I think it’s recognized by human culture and civilization that cats seem to survive evidences or instances that would claim the lives of others, hence we get the situation where cats have nine lives.”
Rats had an important role in the Black Death, or bubonic plague, the most deadly disease outbreak in western history. Kittell said the bubonic plague had a 60 percent fatality rate and that the plague outbreak was prefaced by a period of famine. The plague’s origins can surprisingly be traced back to cats.
“In the early part of the century in Europe, in certain places they thought the famines were brought on by bad weather so they started blaming cats, so they killed them off. And then the rats come because the bubonic plague is associated with the flea….because it infects a flea that lives only on rats.” Kittell said.
Since many cats were killed, the rat population exploded across many parts of Europe and spread the Black Death. Cats were further associated with one of the first workers revolts in history.
Kittell said that in the early 1730s a rich printing shop owner had several apprentices and several cats. After a while, the apprentices got angry that the printing shop owner, whose duty it was to feed and clothe the apprentices, was feeding the apprentices spoiled meat while the cats were getting fresh meat.
One apprentice was fed up with being overworked and underfed so he rounded up all of the cats, put them on trial, and hanged them all.
On the Internet, cats have many trends, from Nyan Cat to Grumpy Cat, which have worldwide recognition. But alas, often cats do not receive proper recognition for their historical achievements as well as their adorable achievements.
Aleya Ericson can be reached at [email protected]