Cats! Those finicky, four legged creatures that make us fall in love with them easily. Not just because they are so cute, but because they do so many strange and wonderful things that make us laugh, or cry or sit in stunned silence.
As a person who has been around cats all my life, I have often wondered why they say cats have nine lives. And then, of course, there are those times when I have no doubts that many, if not all cats have nine lives.
When you watch some of the antics that many of these felines get into, you have to wonder how they are not fatally injured on most of them. It often seems that felines are fearless, daring and stupid all at the same time. Seriously, half of the positions you find them in are done out of stupidity.
Cats do have some incredible agility and an innate ability to avoid death, when death was an almost guaranteed certainty. Considering how long cats have been around, roughly 8,000 to 10,000 years, one would want to believe that the saying is based on truth. Let's dig in and find out the truth of the Nine lives logic.
Feline and Human Interaction
Even in the beginning of the feline and human interaction, there was a benefit for both by interacting. For farmers, having the cat or cats around, helped keep the rodents away from the stored crops. Being on the farms gave the cats a place to live and plenty of free food to keep them alive.
Ancient Egyptians worshiped cats. The cats were mummified when they passed away. Recently archeologists found what they believe is the oldest ever Pet cemetery. They found the remains of 600 cats and dogs in a one area section of Ancient Egypt. When depictions were drawn, many of the deities were drawn with what resembled the heads of cats.
The belief of a cat having nine lives is thought to have come from Ancient Egypt. The Sun God, Atum Ra took the form of a cat so that he could visit the underworld. It is then said that Atum-Ra then gave birth to 8 other Gods. Some people link the saying to this part of Ancient history, Atum-Ra and the 8 other Gods. Therefore nine lives.
There is no clear proof that this is where it came from, but historically, the myth of Atum-Ra sounds likely. However, as time passed, Egyptians would take the cats with them as they traveled, this then began the cat population to areas around the globe. Many different cultures claim a different number of lives for cats, but the point is still the same. Virtually every culture believes that a cat has multiple lives.
Reflexes
It can most certainly be said that cats have to be the luckiest animals in the world. The antics, the danger they put themselves into and still come out as frisky as ever. Some would also be happy to state that the nine lives come from the Bible, some would say from Shakespeare. Even claiming it is luck could be argued, Felines have what is called a ‘Righting Reflex’.
This means that a cat, as it is falling, is able to orientate itself so that it will land on its feet. This righting reflex is most likely the reason for the saying of ‘Cats have nine lives’. That innate ability to land on their feet when they fall from high places. These falls would likely kill or seriously maim other animals that fall from those distances.
Cats are all feral by nature. Even the domesticated felines are able to rely on their reflexes and instincts in order to survive tough situations. For instance, if a dog is beaten by its owner, it continues to go back for more. If the same abuse happens to a cat, the cat will leave home, it will basically run away. They will not put up with the abuse, because it is not in the natural instinct of surviving.
Does this make the cat smart? Does it give it Supernatural powers? Are cats just lucky? It will never be known as a certain fact, however, one must admit that the righting reflex, the super strength of surviving alone in the woods or other dangerous places gives the cat something that most other animals and humans do not have.
The Reasons For The Belief
The top reasons why so many believe that cats have nine lives may sound silly, but they are all feasible and all make just as much sense as the saying coming from Ancient Egypt.
- Cats always land on their feet
- Cats are ninjas of the feline world
- Regardless of their size, a cat is capable of killing an animal much bigger than itself, in order to survive
- Domesticated cats come from a special type of family, they are related to lions, tigers and cheetahs. At least in their souls
- Cats have a phenomenal agility
- Cats are very clean animals, thus they have less risk of carrying diseases than other animals
- Cats have a special sixth sense that enables them to stay out of harm's way in the wild.
- With their agility, stealthy manner cats make extremely good hunters
- Even if it takes a long time, cats always find their way home.
Other plausible reasons may include if a cat is outside when it is dark, their extraordinary eyesight allows them to find their way home in the dark. All humor aside, the saying that all cats have nine lives is really just a simple myth. The myth is based on the reality of a cat's strange way of avoiding serious injury and death.
The righting reflex that cats have, is one thing that stands alone. No other creature can do this. That ability to understand where they are in relation to the ground and being able to turn and change their position as they are falling enables them to land on their feet, which obviously protects them from certain death in many instances.
There are loads of videos all over the internet which show how a cat has this amazing ability to right itself so they will land on their feet when falling. When the cats first became popular, in Ancient Egypt, magic was also a popular pastime, nine is considered a magical number. So while these Ancient Egyptians may have witnessed the strange agility of cats, they related it to magic and gave it a magic number of nine.
The Reality
However, cats are not immortal, they do only have one life. What they do have is an oddly strange ability to stay alive when their actions should lead to fatality. Cats also have more vertebrae and are more flexible in the bones and ligaments. Their light body weights, thick fur along with flexibility, the Righting reflex, and a certain amount of luck is what makes many people believe that a cat has nine lives.
Most cat owners have witnessed a cat do some strange things that most often would kill other animals or people. The more these strange things occurred, the more people began to believe that cat's lives are numerous. The Ancient Egyptians believed that cats were similar or were actually Gods of sorts.
Gods are immortal so when you combine the two, it would make sense that they believe them to be able to have nine lives. Cats in the spiritual type belief would be basically immortal, tie that in with the popularity of magicians of the time, the magic number is believed to be nine, it only makes sense to put it together as ‘Cats have nine lives’.
Another plausible possibility when it comes to Ancient Egyptians, the number nine is the Trinity of trinities, their God Atum-Ra is said to have given birth to eight Gods, so combined with Atum Ra this would be nine lives, and Atum Ra had the head of a cat, together this would state Cats have nine lives.
As far as the myth, or a legend, there are so many cultures that believe cats may have multiple lives, but the exact number is debated. Some cultures will say 5, some will say 6 or 7, while others state it is nine lives. The simple point is, all around the globe, the populations believe that cats have more than one life. Whether it is based solely on religious statements from history, or the legend and myth itself, the belief is there.
Conclusion
Let’s just end this with the simple facts. Cats are much more flexible, with flexible ligaments and bones, they have more body space which makes landing on something other than feet, more possible. The cat has great balance, agility, dexterity and an innate sense of survival.
Although the cat seems to have no fear in anything that they do, they seem to have more trust in themselves than they do humans. We, as humans, should enjoy the fact that our furry felines will seem to live forever with us, giving us much more time to love them and keep them happy and healthy longer.
