August 29th 2008 7:46 pm
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Hey everycat,
Mom is back in school and now that she is gone all day, Skeeter and I miss our Catster pals so much that we begged and begged her until she said we could come and play again. We have had lots of adventures since we disappeared back in February, and I'm sure it will make a great story, but in the meantime I'm just glad to be back.
New pictures and more, coming soon!
Love and purrs to all,
Jubilee
February 4th 2008 5:30 pm
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*** The story of How Fela Tamed Humans concludes! ***
“Fela traveled far and wide, fulfilling the purpose that Lady Bast had given her. She had many adventures, and befriended many humans. And her many litters of kittens stayed in their human homes when Fela moved on.
“The neighbors of the humans with cats noticed that their neighbors’ kitchens, granaries, and barns had far fewer mice and rats than their own, and they admired the little animals who provided such effective rodent control. They wanted cats of their own, to live in their houses and hunt their mice. Fela’s kittens, and their kittens, soon warmed themselves by the fire wherever there were humans to build one. Too weak to be dangerous to humans, even human infants, but lethally efficient against mice, rats, and other vermin; small enough to sleep in a basket or curl up on a lap; affectionate yet independent; naturally clean, and each one uniquely beautiful; they provided the humans with both companionship and mouse-free homes, and in exchange the humans happily sheltered, fed, and cared for them.
“And we have lived with humans ever since. The humans have bulldozed brother Jaguar’s rain forests, and plowed brother Lion’s savannahs, into grazing land for cattle. They have paved sister Cougar’s woodlands and deserts and and sister Tiger’s jungles. Only we, the littlest cats, go where the humans go, and only we live under their protection. And that is because of Fela, the smallest and weakest of Bast’s children, the cat who tamed humans.
“So you see, little ones,” Mama Kitty concluded, “sometimes it’s better to be small and clever than big and strong.”
“My mother always used to say that the moral was to play to your strengths, when she told that story,” Tibby murmured thoughtfully.
“My mother said it’s that adaptability is the key to survival,” said Gromit.
I wondered what other stories my mother hadn’t had a chance to tell me.
By this time, the eastern sky was starting to lighten, and the stars were fading. We were still heading south and slightly east along the steep hillside. The leaders showed no sign of slowing our pace through the dense undergrowth.
Now that Mama Kitty had finished the story, Tibby and I dropped back to join Baby Girl, Bella, and Ham at the rear of the group. One of Ham’s duties as rear guard was to leave occasional trail markers that other cats could identify and follow. He had just finished spraying one such marker against a beech tree and was trotting to catch up again.
“Good story,” Ham commented as he caught up with us. The story had briefly distracted him from whatever he’d been worrying about and he looked a little calmer. He, Bella, and Baby Girl had all heard the tale of how Fela tamed humans before, and had listened from their positions at the rear.
“My mother never told that part about Fela’s first kittens dying,” Baby Girl said. “She was way overprotective.”
“My mother included a part about why we are better than dogs,” Bella said. “It was something like, ‘Man bred Dog from Wolf to be his slave, to help him hunt, and herd, and fight. But we came to humans of our own free will, and we belong only to ourselves.’”
We kept walking. We ducked beneath low, brushy branches and squeezed through thorny thickets. We crossed a narrow, twisting road, and a little while after that we crossed a broader road, but both were dark and quiet. We met no other cats, and Ham began to look worried again.
“I wouldn’t be too concerned about it yet,” Toffy said, when he and Diego paid us a visit just before sunrise. “We have five nights before the Festival of Bast, and the Green Preserve is a big place.”
“They may already be waiting for us at Sleeping Cat Mountain,” Diego added.
Ham nodded, but didn’t look convinced.
“Yeah, maybe that other human gave them all a ride there, and fed them foie gras on the way,” Bella said acidly, which got a nervous laugh from the rest of us but failed to lighten the creases in Ham’s forehead.
At sunrise, we paused in a clearing to face the sun and sing.
“Our Journey greets the waking day
With Lady Bast to lead us,
We travel and we hunt and play
With Lady Bast to feed us.
“We walk in places we’ve never been
With Lady Bast beside us,
We remember things we’ve never seen
With Lady Bast to guide us.
“The night is ours, the stars and moon
With Lady Bast above us,
The day is ours, the sun at noon
With Lady Bast to love us.”
Our voices were a bit tentative, but no human jumped out from the nearby eucalyptus trees. And we walked on.
STAY TUNED!!!! Day Four of the Journey is about to begin!
January 30th 2008 4:19 pm
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“That very night, Fela left her pack,” Mama Kitty went on with her story. By now, the adult cats were listening as intently as the kittens. “She went to find the village and the house she had seen in her dream. She walked a long way and searched for a long time, and she had many adventures along the way. But at last she came to a cluster of low mud-brick houses, nestled in the bend of a river and surrounded by cultivated fields and orchards.
“It was night, and Fela walked through the village while the humans slept, just as she had in her dream. She caught a mouse as it wriggled through a crack in a granary wall. It was too stuffed with barley to run, and Fela devoured it hungrily. Then she walked on. And soon she found herself in front of a familiar doorway.
“Fela did not go into the house. She squeezed beneath a wooden door in the wall of the pen where the goats and chickens slept, and then jumped over a gate on the other side of the pen, and found herself behind the the house, in a modest but pleasant courtyard, enclosed by a mud-brick wall. In the courtyard were a well, a few fruit trees, a beehive, and several buildings, smaller and rougher than the house itself. One was a barn, one was a kitchen with a mud-brick oven, and the rest held heaps of grain and large clay vats of bubbling, yeasty-smelling liquid . All were alive with mice. Fela smiled to herself, beginning to form a plan.
“Then she climbed a fig tree and made herself comfortable on a branch with a view of the door that led from the house to the courtyard. She slept the last hours until dawn, when she was waked by the crowing of roosters. Soon, an old woman came out of the house, scratching herself and grumbling. The old woman shuffled across the courtyard and drew water from the well, filling a clay pot, which she lugged into the kitchen building. After a moment, smoke began trickling from the oven’s flue.
“While the old woman was stoking the kitchen fire, a little girl emerged from the house, carrying a basket over one arm and balancing a clay pot on her head. She had brown skin, and straight black hair that fell over her shoulders, and she wore a linen shift adorned with beads around its square neckline. Fela watched as the girl slipped into the animal pen, stashed the clay pot in a corner, and strewed corn from the basket around the pen, drawing the hens from their nests so that she could gather their eggs and put them into the basket. Then the girl exchanged the basket for the pot and began milking the nanny goat into the clay vessel. As she milked, she sang to herself, and spoke affectionately to the goat. Fela smelled the fresh milk and licked her chops. When the goat’s udder was emptied, the girl gave the goat a friendly pat, then replaced the sloshing pot on her head, picked up the basket of eggs, and carefully walked back into the house.
“Next, a woman walked into the courtyard, carrying a baby boy on her hip. Like the girl, she had brown skin and long black hair and was wearing a linen shift. There was a necklace of blue stones around her neck. The boy had a tuft of black hair and shiny black eyes, and he cooed and babbled as the woman carried him into the kitchen with her.
“Finally, a man left the house. He stretched in the early sunlight, a sturdy man with a linen wrap around his hips, his broad chest and shoulders bare, his hair shorn close, and he plucked a fig from the branch below the one where Fela was hiding as he strode towards the buildings that held the grain and the fermenting vats of beer.
“All that day, Fela watched the brewer and his family. She could not understand their speech, but as she listened to them she began to sense the feelings and intentions that the words carried. She watched what made each human laugh and frown, and she made her plan.
“That night, Fela ate her fill of the mice in the brewery. And at sunrise, when the little girl came to feed the chickens and milk the nanny goat, Fela was waiting in the courtyard. Fela couldn’t purr yet in those days, but she mewed sweetly and rolled onto her back at the girl’s bare feet to show that she meant no harm, then twined tamely around the girl’s ankles, and the girl laughed with delight.
“Later that morning, Fela made sure that the brewer saw her killing a large mouse. Instead of eating it, she placed it by the barn door like an offering while the man looked on, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
“‘Now,’ said Fela to herself, ‘the girl will tell her mother and grandmother how beautiful and playful and affectionate I am. And the man will tell his wife and mother how clever and independent and useful I am.’
“Soon Fela had made herself a familiar sight in the brewer’s courtyard. When the grandmother tried to shoo Fela away, grumbling that wild animals didn’t belong with people, the girl cried that Fela was far too friendly to be wild, and Fela stayed. When the wife tried to shoo Fela away, worried that she might hurt the baby, the man pointed out how many mice and rats Fela killed, and Fela stayed. She caught more mice than she could eat, and she regularly left surplus carcasses by the barn door to remind the brewer who was responsible for the sudden drop in the rodent population.
“Before many days had gone by, Fela allowed the little girl to pet her, and as the child stroked Fela’s soft fur and caressed her ears, Fela felt the warmth of human love for the first time. Not long after that, the man smiled down at her as she deposited a freshly-killed mouse at his feet, and said, ‘Thank you, Bright Eyes,’ giving Fela her first human name. That evening, and every evening from then on, a dish of scraps appeared by the back door for Fela.
“Fela was still not allowed into the house, however. She slept in the barn, biding her time. One afternoon, when the family was napping through the hottest part of the day, Fela saw a big rat creep across the courtyard and into the house. She followed the rat inside and pounced on it just as it was about to bite the sleeping baby’s cheek with its long yellow teeth. The rat fought hard, squealing and biting, before Fela snapped its neck. The commotion woke the family, and when the brewer’s wife saw the dead rat by the cradle and Fela standing over its body, bloody and panting, she swooped Fela up in her arms and tended the little cat’s wounds with her own hands. After that, Fela was welcome to come and go in the house as she liked. Only the grandmother still muttered at her and shooed her out of the way.
“Fela waited and watched, and one evening, when the grandmother was sitting by the hearth, wrapped in a woolen cloak and staring into the embers, with loneliness radiating from her like the heat from the fire, Fela simply jumped onto the grandmother’s lap, landing as lightly as a leaf, and rubbed her cheek against the old woman’s wrinkled hand before snuggling against her and falling asleep. The grandmother patted Fela cautiously, then relaxed beneath the cat’s soft warmth, and her face softened as she stroked Fela’s back.
“That night, the grandmother fixed up a soft cushion by the fire for Fela, just like the one in Fela’s dream.
“Fela lived happily with the brewer’s family for many months. When her season came, she slipped over the courtyard wall one moonless night, and in an orchard outside the village she met a large, handsome brown tom with green-gold eyes. She was back on her cushion by the hearth before daybreak. When her kittens were born, they were strong and healthy, and Fela's human family was almost as proud and delighted as Fela herself. Fela taught her kittens to play and hunt, and sang to them, and told them stories of Bast.
"One night, shortly after the kittens were weaned, Lady Bast walked with Fela in a dream once more. It seemed to Fela that she left her sleeping body by the hearth and walked alongside a very large and very beautiful Abyssinian cat whose eyes flashed gold and green. Fela and Bast padded out of the house and through the village, and then they left the village and climbed into the sky, walking among the stars.
“Fela looked down at the earth far below, and saw the flickering hearths and fires of many human settlements. She looked into Lady Bast’s eyes and saw the fires reflected there.
“‘Your journey is just beginning, little daughter,’ Bast said.
“When Fela woke up, she remembered her dream, and her heart filled with sadness. But she knew what she had to do.
“That very night, Fela left her kittens, and left the brewer’s house. She set out across the world to find other humans to tame.”
STAY TUNED!!!! The Journey continues!
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