Saturday is Caturday! House Panthers and Their Illustrious History.

Long before Halloween marketing turned them into spooky décor, black cats were divine royalty. In ancient Egypt, they were not omens but oracles. These miniature panthers belonged to Bastet, the goddess of pleasure, fertility, good health, and protection.

Bastet began as a lioness, the sun’s avenger, daughter of Ra, sister of Sekhmet, wife of Ptah, and mother of Mihos, a family tree that reads like a Biblical soap opera with better accessories. Over time, as her temper softened, she shed her lion form and took the shape of a domestic cat. She came to represent warmth, sensuality, and that silent, ungovernable power that defines womanhood when it is left to rule itself.

Temples to Bastet once filled the city of Bubastis. Each year, pilgrims arrived by the tens of thousands. The air smelled of wine, incense, and fevered devotion. Music drifted through the streets while golden statues gleamed in the ambient torchlight. Mummified cats, wrapped in linen and sealed in gilt coffins, were offered to the goddess as symbols of loyalty and reverence. 

Gayer-Anderson cat in The British Museum (664-332 BC)

Cats were so beloved that killing one, even by accident, could cost a person their life. (Personally, that seems fair) Their grace and hunting skill made them indispensable, and many were adorned with intricate gold collars or gems. They dined beside their owners, slept on expensive silks, and lived lives of leisure worthy of lore. When an adored cat died, families shaved their eyebrows in mourning. Archaeologists have uncovered entire cat cemeteries, proof that within the myths, the truth of Egyptian devotion to felines was fact.

To love a cat was to love Bastet herself. To live under her protection was both a privilege and a warning. Her likeness was carved into charms to guard homes and protect health, but she was also known to avenge any cruelty toward her chosen creatures. (Again, totally fair. I wish she would come back and smite some people.) Bastet was both charm and consequence, her soft purr hiding the suggestion of a roar.

When the Romans arrived in Egypt, they were enthralled by the worship of these curious creatures. They quickly became believers in the power of the cat, and they took Bastet’s descendants back to Europe, disguising reverence as practicality. Cats were highly valued for keeping rats off ships and grain safe in storage. For a time, their grace passed as utility.

Then came the long dark centuries when superstition replaced reason. Reason was ruled by religion. Women who lived alone with black cats were no longer seen as wise but as wicked, unnatural. The sacred feminine became something to root out and destroy rather than revere. The soft candlelight that once honored Bastet turned to scorching torchlight, and her daughters were forced into the shadows.

By the 1600s, rabid paranoia had become law. Black cats were branded as agents of evil and minions of Satan. Yet sailors still pleaded for one aboard, trusting in their power to calm seas and bring favorable winds. In Scotland, a black cat on the doorstep still foretold wealth and good luck. Even while the Church whispered curses, ordinary people kept feeding them quietly under the table.

Eventually, reason returned, and humanity remembered proper etiquette. The modern world restored black cats to their rightful thrones. From Poe’s The Black Cat to the graceful familiars of film, they reclaimed their place as icons of mystery and survival.

The same sleek defiance that once made them heretics now makes them legendary. They are proof that what frightened people in the dark turned out to be beauty itself, waiting for recognition. 

photos:Einsamer Schütze, unknown