Tag: china

Culture

Mini Blog: Reporting from the Chicago Field Museum

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Meredith Hemphill

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I recently visited one of my Bucket List museums (yes, that is the kind of nerd that I am). I wanted to share a few of my pictures from the Chicago Field Museum featuring feline artifacts in their collections.

For more information about cat mummies in ancient Egypt, see my article on the goddess Bastet. The lions of Tsavo are on my shortlist for future articles. If you don’t know, it is a gruesome and fascinating tale.

  • cat mummy
    Ancient Egyptian cat mummy
  • two jade cats
    A pair of cats sculpted from jade in China
  • two taxidermy lions
    The final resting place of the lions of Tsavo
  • selfie with taxidermy lions
    My somber selfie with the Tsavo lions
  • two lion skulls
    The skulls of the Tsavo lions
Culture

Sagwa: The Chinese Siamese Cat

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Meredith Hemphill

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Encyclopaedia Felidae now has a Patreon! Go to www.patreon.com/EncyclopaediaFelidae if you want to help support this content!

It’s probably been about 20 years since I last saw Sagwa, but I still remember it fondly if a bit blurrily. I was solidly a PBS kid, and I would have been five when it premiered, perfectly in the target demographic. Plus, my favorite animals have always been cats and bats. A cartoon about a kitten whose best friend is a bat was made for me. The enduring love for this short-lived kids’ show indicates a lot of other children felt the same way. I’ve found out, however, that Sagwa was a real cat! She inspired a children’s book which inspired the popular television show.

Sagwa, Amy’s Siamese Cat

Writer Amy Tan created the character of Sagwa. Tan is a first-generation Chinese American who started her career as a language specialist for developmentally disabled children (7). She started writing fiction in the 1980s while working as a freelance business writer as a break from her hectic work schedule (7). Tan never intended to be a professional writer; she just kind of fell into it and was really good at it (7). Tan’s first and best-known book is The Joy Luck Club, but she went on to publish many other books, short stories, and essays, including Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat, a picture book for children (4, 7, 8).

Sagwa book cover
Image from Wikipedia

Tan had an elderly Siamese cat named Sagwa (1, 2, 5). Sagwa means “silly melon head” in Chinese (2, 5, 6, 9). It’s usually an insult to say to another person, as it implies incompetence (6). As a name for a cat, though, I think it’s kind of cute. One night, Tan had a dream about her cat and how Sagwa got her color points (1, 5). She decided to write a story about it, and in 1994 Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat was published with illustrations by Gretchen Schields (2, 8). The real Sagwa lived to be 21 years old and is memorialized in the dedication of the book as Amy Tan’s “late and dearly beloved kitty” (2).

In the book, the character of Sagwa is a pure-white kitten who lives in the house of the Foolish Magistrate, an unpleasant official with a habit of making up restrictive and unnecessary rules for his subjects. One day, the Foolish Magistrate decides to decree that all citizens must not sing until after sunset. Sagwa was napping in the study, and after the magistrate left, she jumped down onto his desk and landed in an inkpot. The ink got all over her face, ears, paws, and tail. (2, 8)

As Sagwa tried to rub the ink off, she accidentally smudged out the character for “not” on the proclamation. When the altered decree was read, the citizens loved the idea of singing all day. The magistrate was not pleased to hear singing, until he realized they were singing his praises. The magistrate learned some wisdom, and he made a new decree that all cats in his district would henceforth have dark points in honor of Sagwa. (2, 8)

Sagwa Takes the Small Screen

PBS Kids adapted the story and characters from Amy Tan’s book into a television show that premiered on September 3, 2001 and ran for a single season with 40 episodes (3, 5, 6). Tan was a creative consultant on the production (3, 4). The first episode tells the story from the book, and the rest of the stories are original (6, 9).

Amy Tan with Sagwa
Amy Tan and the Miao kittens – Image from tvtropes

The action centers around the Miao family: the kittens Sagwa, older brother Dongwa, and younger sister Sheegwa as well as their parents Mama and Baba and grandparents Nai-Nai and Yeh-Yeh. As in the book, they live in the house of the Foolish Magistrate, who lives with his wife, Tai-Tai (literally “wife”), and their three daughters. The magistrate’s chef and Reader of the Rules also feature prominently, as well as other cats in the village. Sagwa’s best friend is a bat named Fu-Fu. The Miao family are court calligraphers–they write the magistrate’s edits for him by dipping their tails in ink (3, 5, 9).

There’s no specific location given for the village, but clues in the show give the time as the late Qing Dynasty, 1895-1912 (5, 6, 9). Each episode contains two animated stories divided by a short segment of real children talking about their culture and customs (1, 3, 4). In an interview with the Arizona Daily Sun, Amy Tan explained that the show, for her, was about showing kids that culture, heritage, and circumstances make us different, but that we really have more in common than what divides us (1). “The whole idea to me is that imagination is so tied to compassion for other people,” she said (1).

Like most children’s media, each story in Sagwa teaches a moral lesson. The press release for the show from PBS cites “there’s more than one way to view the world” and “you’re never too small for your own voice to be heard” as uniting themes (4). Introducing children to other cultures, especially Chinese traditions, was obviously a priority as well.

Paw Rating

As far as the book goes, I only just learned it exists, but it looks adorable. I want one. Critical reviews I read called it wordy and were quite unkind about the artwork (8). I think perhaps those reviewers missed the point of children’s books, especially with their complaints suggesting that the illustrations weren’t high art. There’s a video online of Amy Tan reading it on Sesame Street, and it looked like a book I would have loved when I was little. Having not actually read it myself, only watched it read to Elmo, I can’t really give it a rating of my own. Here is a great review from a fellow cat person, however.

As for the television show, it is absolutely charming. Although I have my doubts that it’s entirely accurate to Qing Dynasty Chinese culture, it definitely broadened my horizons as a little child living in a very white community. I do have a bone to pick with it as an amateur cat educator. I can let the thing with the magically permanent ink markings go because that was the folktale Amy Tan created. However, no cat seems to have a little of more than one kitten, at least not that I can remember. The Miao kittens are all said to be two years apart in age, yet they are all still kittens (5, 9). Five-to-eight-year-old children are old enough for animal characters in their edutainment to follow the basic rules of their species. Don’t get me started on the dogs that live in Tai-Tai’s sleeves.

On the whole, I think it’s a show that kids can get a lot out of, but there’s room for improvement when it comes to accuracy and educational value. It’s a shame it only ran for one season. It was in reruns so long, I thought surely it was longer than that. I give Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese cat 4 out of 5 paws. Time to look up a recipe for mooncakes.

Works Cited

  1. Coder, M. (2001, September 24). Sagwa shows her true colors–and admires others’. Arizona Daily Sun. link
  2. Haines, C. (n.d.). Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat. Life with Siamese Cats. https://www.life-with-siamese-cats.com/sagwa-the-chinese-siamese-cat.html
  3. Heffley, L. (2001, September 3). ‘Sagwa’ a finely drawn tale. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-sep-03-ca-41625-story.html
  4. PBS Publicity. (2000, January 19). Amy Tan’s Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat, produced by Cinegroupe in association with Children’s Television Workshop and IF/X Productions, is coming daily to PBS Kids. Public Broadcasting Service. link
  5. Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat. (n.d.). IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0294177/
  6. Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat. (2022, April 17) In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sagwa,_the_Chinese_Siamese_Cat&oldid=1083261392
  7. Tan, A. (n.d.). About. Amy Tan: The official website. http://www.amytan.net/about.html
  8. The Indianapolis Public Library. (2022, April 26). Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat. https://indypl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S165C404405
  9. Western animation: Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat. (2022, April 18). In tvtropes. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/SagwaTheChineseSiameseCat

Published May 8, 2022

Culture

Werecats, Part I: The Mystic Weretiger

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Meredith Hemphill

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Encyclopaedia Felidae now has a Patreon! Go to www.patreon.com/EncyclopaediaFelidae if you want to help support this content!

Man with painted tiger stripes
Photo by Charles Crawshaw World Peace in 2020 from Pexels

Werelions, weretigers, werejaguars, oh my! That was my where my brain was at about thirty seconds into my research on ailuranthropy, or the phenomenon of humans transforming into big cats (from the Greek ailouros “cat” and anthropos “human”). I hadn’t intended for this to be a series, but I quickly realized that werecats were a much larger topic than I had expected. This means I get to draw the Halloween blogs out longer, so I can’t complain. We will begin the series with the cat people that stalk human prey in the folktales of Asia: the weretigers.

Weretigers are the most frequently occurring kind of were-creature in the folklore of tropical Asia (1, 2). Tales about these creatures can be found in the mythology of China, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia, just to name a few. Humans have lived alongside tigers in this part of the world forever, really, although the decline of tigers has tragically made that less the case. In Europe, the most fearsome natural predator was the wolf, giving rise to stories of humans becoming wolves. There was no more appropriate metaphor for the animal within. Where the tiger is the king of the jungle, however, humans become cats.

Under Their Skin

The stories about weretigers are almost as different as the people and places where they are told. In only some of them are people bodily transformed into tigers. Often, the transformation takes place once the weretiger puts on a tiger skin with or without an accompanying incantation (3, 4). The European werewolf is frequently made the same way. There are some stories where people became weretigers accidentally after slipping into a tiger skin (4). One story tells of a Chinese monk who put on a tiger skin to play a practical joke, only to become a tiger and remain so for a year (4).

Alternatively, a person may become a weretiger by burning incense, reciting an incantation, and throwing his clothes off (5, 6). By shedding their clothes, they are shedding their personhood, in a sense, and once naked they transform into a tiger (5, 6). If someone steals the clothes, the weretiger will not be able to turn back into a human (6).

White tiger on grass
Photo by Anthony from Pexels

My personal favorite tactic, however, involves circling an anthill seven times clockwise while repeating a secret charm (7). This lacks the obvious symbolism of stripping off one’s humanity but is infinitely more bizarre. To turn back, simply do the opposite: walk around the anthill counterclockwise seven times while repeating the charm (7). Does this mean weretigers can talk? Does it have to be the same anthill? I have no idea, but I love it.

Some transformation rituals require one or more accomplices. In one, a practitioner recites particular spells, or mantras, over a measure of water (1). An assistant then sprinkles the water over the weretiger to effect the transformation (1). To change them back, the assistant sprinkles the water over them again (1). In some versions of the throw-off-the-clothes ritual, the only way to become human again is for someone to hurl the weretiger’s clothes at them while they are in tiger form (1). If a weretiger’s accomplice is unable or unwilling to help for whatever reason, they will be stuck as a tiger, presumably for the rest of their life (5).

Tiger Spirits

In some beliefs, a person becomes a weretiger when they are possessed by a spirit. The Lisu people of Laos believe that weretigers can possess people and may then possess their family members in turn (8). They also believe that those who are thus possessed will put “the essence of the weretiger” into a valuable object and leave it lying on a path (8). Whoever picks the object up will be possessed, too (8). I can only imagine the chain reactions of weretiger possession that ensue from a single Weretiger Zero.

On the other hand, there is a folk belief in Malaysia that certain families are already tigrine by birth (9). After death, they become tigers that somewhat resemble their human selves and remember their human lives (9). These tigers visit their humans relatives during festivals or times of great turmoil and can sometimes be called upon for help (9). When a human member of the family is about to die, at least one of their tiger relatives will come to hold vigil outside the house, waiting (9). A few days after death, their grave will be found opened, and a representative tiger will appear in the nearby forest (9). The journal article describing this belief was written in 1922 (9), so it is possible that the lore has died out by now. Unless, of course, it’s not just a myth.

Dreamtime Weretiger

Tiger in snow
Image by Marcel Langthim from Pixabay

Interestingly, there is a major type of weretiger that does not involve any metamorphosis at all. These weretigers leave their human bodies in their sleep to become tigers. In the lore of certain indigenous peoples of India and south Asia, some individuals naturally have the ability to be this kind of weretiger (1, 2). When these weretigers dream, a part of their soul travels into the jungle and joins with the soul of a live tiger (1, 2). The weretiger then acts out the desires of the sleeping human, which can sometimes result in the property destruction, injury, or death of the weretiger’s enemies (1, 2).

The weretiger and their tiger have a close relationship. They always migrates into the same tiger, night after night, for their entire life (1, 2). If the tiger is wounded or killed while bonded with the weretiger’s soul, the human body suffers the same fate (1, 2).

The Khasis of northeastern India ascribe to a variation of the dreaming weretiger belief. Khasis people believe that humans are divided into the body, the soul, and the rngiew (10, 11). The rngiew is a sort of essential, divine essence integral to each person (10). When the weretigers sleep, their rngiew leave their bodies and transform into tigers in the spirit world (10, 11). However, the spirit world and the physical one are not entirely separate, and the weretigers are able to interact with the material plane as tigers (10, 11). People either inherit the ability to be a weretiger or are chosen to receive the gift by a deity (10).

The Good, the Bad, and the Stripey

I have read a lot of old werewolf stories because that’s the kind of thing I do for fun. I can’t think of a single one where the werewolf was presented as anything other than a force for evil. Modern representations are much more varied, of course, but folklore decidedly depicts werewolves as bad dogs. Weretigers, however, are painted in many different lights.

Tiger in jungle
Image by Capri23auto from Pixabay

Sometimes, weretigers engender terror. They are thought to kill people and livestock (1, 2, 4). But other times they are protectors (9, 10, 11, 12). The Khasis weretigers have a sacred duty to protect their communities from harm, including other weretigers (11). There are Chinese myths about weretigers who are the instruments of heaven, meting out divine fate whether they want to or not (4).

Sumatrans believe that were-tiger homes are made of roofs thatched with human hair, walls made of human skin, and beams of human bones.

Joane le Roux, New Straits Times

Weretigers have a complicated place in the folklore of Asia, both within and between cultures. Should you want to know how to recognize them, just to be safe, there are a few ways. One of the most common signs is that weretigers lack the groove on the upper lip (5, 9). A person caught vomiting chicken feathers is considered a likely suspect for a weretiger (12). I would suggest that that should make them suspect for something regardless. The tracks of the weretiger are distinctive because there are five toes on each paw, whereas normal tigers, like all cats, leave prints with five toes on the front paws and four on the back (10, 11). If you see large cat prints with any number of toes, perhaps the best practice is to depart with haste rather than start counting.

Works Cited

  1. Brighenti, F. (2017). Traditional beliefs about weretigers among the Garos of Meghalaya. eTropic, 16(1), 96-111. PDF
  2. Brighenti, F. (2011). Kradi mliva: The phenomenon of tiger-transformation in the traditional lore of the Kondh tribals of Orissa. Lokaratna, 4, 11-25. PDF
  3. Casal, U.A. (1959). The goblin fox and badger and other witch animals of Japan. Folklore Studies, 18, 1-93. doi: 10.2307/1177429.
  4. Hammond, C.E. (1992). Sacred metamorphosis: The weretiger and the shaman. Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 46(2/3), 235-255. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23658449
  5. Wessing, R. (1995). The last tiger in East Java: Symbolic continuity in ecological change. Asian Folklore Studies, 54(2), 191-218. doi: 10.2307/1178941
  6. Wessing, R. (1994). “Bangatowa,” “Patogu” and “Gaddhungan”: Perceptions of the tiger among the Madurese. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 25(2), 368-380. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20071663
  7. Biria, S.G.D. (1947). The Muria and their Ghotul. Oxford University Press.
  8. Worra, B.T. (2012, December 20). Pondering weretigers of Laos. On the Other Side of the Eye. http://thaoworra.blogspot.com/2012/12/pondering-weretigers-of-laos.html
  9. bin Ahmad, Z.A. (1922). The tiger-breed families. Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 85, 36-39. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41561390
  10. Lyngdoh, M. (2016). Tiger transformation among the Khasis of northeastern India: Belief worlds and shifting realities. Anthropos, 111(2), 649-658. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44791292
  11. Kharmawphlang, D. (2000). In search of tigermen: The were-tiger tradition of the Khasis. India International Centre Quaterly, 27(4), 160-176. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23005708
  12. le Roux, J. (2014, November 1). In pursuit of a were-tiger. New Strait Times. https://www.nst.com.my/news/2015/09/pursuit-were-tiger

Published October 26th, 2020