An ordinary cat has somehow become sacred, lucky, famous and cursed all at once
In Britain, a black cat crossing the street is a stroke of luck; in the United States, it's a reason to turn around. Cultures have built very different ideas about what a cat represents, from sacred guardian to bad omen. Some of those beliefs live on today in bronze statues and breeds first described in centuries-old manuscripts. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that Egyptian households in mourning for a cat that died naturally would shave only their eyebrows, compared with shaving the entire body for a dead dog. He also described Egyptians prioritizing their cats over their homes during a fire, with the animals said to slip past the broken line people formed and spring into the flames themselves. That affection for cats lives on today on Aoshima Island, where about 80 cats now outnumber the three elderly residents left. Fishermen once brought cats aboard to control rats, and the…
