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| Sealpoint Meezer. Not Amethyst. |
The small, furred animal we humans commonly call a ‘cat’,
or the equivalent common term in any of the terrestrial languages, is formally
known by the ‘universal’ system of species classification as “felis catus.”
According to the current free encyclopedia, the “Wikipedia”, the cat is a
“skilled predator.” Cats are the natural nemesis of over 1,000 other species.
The cat communicates with vocalizations that include “meowing, purring,
trilling, hissing, growling, squeaking, chirping, clicking, and grunting.”[1]
The animal also communicates with a variety of postures. A cat will arch its
back, for example, when confronted or threatened. It will use its tail to
express anything from annoyance to affection. “A study in 2007 found that the
lines of descent of all house cats probably run through as few as five self-domesticating African Wildcats (Felis silvestris lybica) circa 8000 BC,
in the Near East. The earliest direct evidence of cat domestication is a kitten
that was buried with its owner 9,500 years ago in Cyprus.”[2]
Cats exist in varied body sizes and types, fur lengths,
with fur in a variety of colors and patterns. “Tortie”, for example, refers to
a tortoise-like pattern in the animal’s fur color. The tortoiseshell pattern
may be in any of several specific colors. The ‘pure’ form of this coloration
features the colors black and dark red, in light and dark iterations.
As for the ‘cat fancy’, the simple idea of enjoying and
keeping these animals has wrapped itself around one of the peculiarities of
human nature. No sooner has a fancy to something taken root do those who crave
an authority to support their strong feelings rally around those who purport to
wield it. So long as the term ‘cat fancy’ is in lower case letters, I can
timidly raise my hand as being among those included. I wouldn’t be writing a
memorial devoted to a departed feline if I did not, at a fundamental level,
appreciate cats. When speaking of the Cat Fancy in capital letters, the term
refers to a number of eponymous organizations around the world, including a
monthly magazine. These groups, and those like them, represent the arbiters of
taste in matters feline. Despite the famous Latin injunction warning against
disputing such matters, when it comes down to classifying and setting standards
for the evaluation and judgment of cats, human controversy arches its back and
hisses.
The various controversies include one that swirls around
my prima vista take on Amethyst the cat: that she might not be rightly called a
“Siamese.” Simply put: the Cat Fanciers Association (CFA) in America recognizes only four point
colors as Siamese. The CFA calls anything but a seal, blue, chocolate or lilac
pointed cat a “Colorpoint Shorthair.” Other cat organizations are willing to
include them with the Siamese breed. Turning to a book published in the United
Kingdom that has been in my library for thirty years[3],
I read a crystal clear discourse on the issue that, summarized, goes as
follows: When a Siamese cat mates with a non-Siamese, the results are often a
black cat. Every now and then, a kitten is born of such an unholy union with
the colors of its non-Siamese parent deployed as its point colors. (The point
pattern in Siamese cats manifests as the coloration of the ears, face, and
paws.) Such a cat is genetically a mix. If this cat reproduces with another of
its kind, there is only a small chance that it will reproduce the accident that
produced its point colors. To raise the chances that it will do so, one must
breed it with a “seal-pointed Siamese of outstanding quality. Where good tabby
pointed kittens resulted from such unions they, in turn, were to be bred back
to pure Siamese.” [4] After ten such crosses, the genetic makeup of
the resulting animals would be 99.9% pure Siamese.[5] This is apparently pure enough for the United
Kingdom’s Governing Council of the Cat Fancy, which recognizes the
Tabby-Pointed Siamese as breed 32. The GCCF classifies the Tortie-Pointed
Siamese as 32c. Amethyst, we can slip you in over the border.
This is not the end of the aesthetic tongue clucking,
however. There is a kink in the tail. The face is not wedge shaped, as
specified in the standard, either side of the Pond. The legs are not slim and
tapered. The cat that Amethyst was is not pictured in the brochure for any
modern cat show. She was what breeders call a “traditional”, or “applehead”
Siamese. What is this tradition? What is known about the origins of this breed?
A superficial examination of the numerous web sites that opine about the
history of the pointed cat of Siam suggests that the record is a bit sketchy.
All sites report the following tidbits: There is an illustrated book of poems
about cats, written in what is now Thailand in the 14th Century,
called the “Tamra Maew.” The traditional
seal-point cat is among those featured in the work. A breeding pair of cats was
imported into England by the British Counsel-General, Edward Blencowe Gould, in
1884, who gave the pair to his sister. She founded a Siamese cat club. In the
United States, President Rutherford B. Hayes had received a cat, “Siam”, from
the American Consul in Bangkok, in 1878. The cats made a huge impression with
the fanciers and the general public. The pointed cats seen in historical
photographs are clearly traditional-style seal points, with rounded heads and
robust bodies. Some of the photos show a cat of a nearly solid color, with very
subtle pointing. The early imported cats also had the kinked tail, as do many
contemporary Asian specimens. There is a nearly parallel story of pointed cats
being imported with a more wedge-shaped face and slender appendages. This
suggests that the two strains of the breed have existed side-by-side going back
into the past. In any event, the wedge shaped cats began to be favored by
fanciers in the 1950’s and ‘60’s. Selective breeding has exaggerated their
features, and eliminated the kink in the tail. The extreme modern forms
currently dominate the cat shows. One gets the impression from the sites of the
applehead breeders that they are still popular with the more relaxed facet of
the public. As the capital letters fall away, the cat fancy leans towards the
less fancy. It certainly seems to be the consensus that the traditional Siamese
cat is of the same breed as the cats that have been mousing in Asia for
millennia. Amethyst, we’re going to grandfather you in. Let Shelley’s original
estimation stand: you were a Tortie-Point Applehead Siamese Cat, breed 32c. “An
expensive cat.” The beautiful animal staring back at me from memory did not
care about any of this.
[1]
Wikipedia, “Cat”, December 17, 2009.
[2]
Op. Cit.
[3]
Pet Library’s Complete Cat, Grace Pond, 1968, Pet Library Inc.
[4]
Op. Cit., page 161.
[5]
The writer is cited by Ms. Pond as Dr. Ivor Raleigh, writing in 1965.
