The text: 

Lo que aprendemos de los gatos was published in 2014 by Paloma Díaz-Mas. Díaz-Mas is a research professor who studied journalism and philology, and has obtained her doctorate at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. To Díaz-Mas, this book has the purpose of showing us the behavior of cats and what we can learn from cats and what our beliefs about who the dominating animals are should be (Díaz-Mas). Lo que aprendemos de los gatos has two parts. For this translation we have selected a short story from the first part of the book and named it How Cats Domesticated Humans. This short story tells the journey of a cat who is trying to get people accustomed to its presence. This story speaks about how cats have an agenda that they want to accomplish, and while humans may think the cat is doing one thing, it appears to be that the cat is doing something rather different. In this short story, the cat (who represents cats in general) has impacted the lives of the people around it despite the relationship of domination the feline was trying to establish. 

Themes:

Inversion of Human and Animal Roles:

In a society where cats are not welcomed, one cat finds subtle ways to earn the people’s trust. In this story, a cat begins to scheme about how it can get into people’s homes and dominate them. By doing this, the story takes into account the cat’s perspective while giving negative comments about how people’s understanding of the world seems limited. Through the cat’s viewpoint, humans are lesser than it. Feline actions demonstrate how cats can be smarter than people. While humans normally believe that they are superior because they are rational whereas animals are not because of their natural instincts, in the story this notion is challenged when the cat is presented to be smarter, more patient, and astute compared to his alleged masters. The story refers to human rationality as a sickness (called Reason) to highlight the feline perspective towards people.

Cats and Gender:

In Western culture, cats are associated with women and the female world in general. In the Egyptian tradition, cats were identified as goddesses because of their high rates of fertility and also their ability to fight off animals such as snakes; Egyptians believed that cats brought good fortune to their families (Engels 23-24). Once they died, Egyptians would mummify their bodies in order to glorify them. Some of these concepts underlie in How Cats Domesticated Humans. They become evident when the people begin to notice how useful it is having a cat around because of the protection they provide to the household. Once the cat returns home, the family would rejoice in its presence and give the cat gifts in order to make the it happy. 

Traditionalism and Narrative devices in the Folktale:

How Cats Domesticated Humans is presented as one version of a traditional folktale told by a storyteller from North Africa. To make it more enjoyable to the reader, the style of writing mimics the form of a typical folktale. Thanks to its geographical closeness to Egypt, cultural conceptions about cats in contrast to the Western culture are credible. 

How Cats Domesticated Humans uses repetition as a folktale device. Repetition in folktales is commonly used in order to help memorization (Thompson). Repetition occurs not only within the story itself, but also throughout different stories that tell similar stories. In many well-known folktales, there is always someone who is wiser, or someone that is a villain, and the stories mostly end in the same way. In How Cats Domesticated Humans, repetition is also a linguistic device used to help the story start reaching its climax (Thompson). For instance, the story repeats the phrase “it meditated, and meditated, and meditated,” to emphasize the determination of the cat to confront consecutive tests to obtain people’s trust. This repetition also helps forebode that something bigger will happen, hinting that the plot of the story will escalate (Thompson).

WORKS CITED: 

Díaz-Mas, Paloma. Lo que aprendemos de los gatos. Anagrama, 2014.

Engels, Donald. Classical Cats: The rise and fall of the sacred cats. London, Routledge,1999.

Thompson, Stith. "folk literature". Encyclopedia Britannica, 16 Jan. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/art/folk-literature. Accessed 10 July 2024.

"HOW CATS DOMESTICATED HUMANS" (“CÓMO LOS GATOS DOMESTICARON AL HOMBRE”) ("LO QUE APRENDEMOS DE LOS GATOS," Spain, 2014) BY PALOMA DÍAZ-MAS

TRANSLATED BY EMELY MARTINEZ AND FERNANDO RODRIGUEZ-MANSILLA

ENGLISH:

Of all the domesticated animals, cats are the only ones that have not been domesticated by humans. Not because they are still wild animals (even if sometimes it appears to be that way), not even because they are incapable of coexisting with humans, but because it wasn’t humans who domesticated the cats, rather it was cats who domesticated themselves. In other cases, humans took the cubs of other species, got them used to living in their environment or they dominated and defeated them. But cats decided on their own to move in and live in people’s houses. For that reason cats do not have a master and living with them is always the outcome of an agreement, of a negotiation, not of a domination. If anything, cats command people (people, in other words, are big animals, but well behaved).

In the marketplaces of cities in North Africa there are still storytellers that narrate in front of a spontaneous crowd. They narrate stories that are received through oral tradition, transmitted from generation to generation; they enrich those stories by adding their own details and flare. Among the stories that they tell, there is the one about how cats domesticated humans; this could be one version:

Thousands of years ago cats really wanted to go inside the barns owned by humans. And it wasn’t because the cats wanted the stored cereals, since this product had no value to them, but rather because they had observed that rats and mice would secretly get into the silos, taking advantage of any small opening or any small crack between the doors in order to eat the wheat and barley. So the cat, who is a clever animal, thought that if it could go on its own into the silo and in the granary, then it would always find plenty of prey to hunt. It would surely be able to feed itself with little effort. 

But it wasn’t even possible for cats to get close to the town where the barn was. Because back then, they were wild animals, and they lived freely in the deserts and went hunting at night. When the ground cooled off, the insects and the small beasts would leave their refuge in the sand in order to wake up with the fresh air from the night. Humans loathed the wild animals from the desert and made sure to keep them away from the town, chasing them to their deaths. That was why cats could not get close to the towns nor the barns. 

Cats have an attribute that humans lack: they are patient and they don’t mind waiting. Contrary to humans, who want to do everything quickly, who work rapidly and barely have time to sit and rest, cats sit, they get comfortable and wait until the best opportunity presents itself. Only then do they act. So this one cat meditated, and meditated, and meditated on how it could enter the barns and finally decided to take a small step to get near people’s houses.                        

One night, while the humans slept, the cat approached a town. When the feline found a place that seemed good, it selected a tree, using its nails to climb the trunk, and got comfortable on a tall branch, in a place where the humans could see it. But if they tried to catch the cat, it could escape with ease.                                                                                                 

Dawn came and at first the humans did not notice the cat, because even though it was in everyone’s view, its fur made the feline blend in with the lights and shadows formed by the leaves of the tree. Moreover, the humans were busy with their tasks and were not interested in looking up whereas the cat was observing them. Well placed in one of the branches, the cat waited, and waited, and waited.

After a few days, at the hour in which the sun is at its highest in the sky, the humans could not stand the exhaustion and the heat. So in order to relax they rested in the fresh shade of a sycamore tree. The cat already knew how to choose well and it was at that same tree that gave the best shade, the sycamore. And one of the humans, who had laid down in the shade, looked up and saw the cat comfortably sitting on a branch. He informed the rest and they all began to throw rocks to kill the cat or to chase it away, like they used to do with all pests. Because at that time humans were uncivilized and barely distinguished between cats, cobras or jackals. For them, all of the animals that live freely were the same. But because the cat was very high and settled on a branch, the rocks they threw did not reach it and instead they would fall onto the heads of the people who had thrown them. When the people got tired of receiving blows from the rocks which they themselves had thrown high, they decided to leave the cat in peace, and they continued resting while the cat watched, and later they went back to work. The cat stayed there, in the place it had chosen, and it stayed there for as long as it wanted. The feline left when it seemed right, and it came back whenever it felt like it. If the cat wished, every now and then, it would hunt some of the birds that came to peck the fruit of the tree. 

Little by little, the humans had realized that, in the tree where the cat would normally stay, the birds did not eat the fruit because the cat hunted them or the birds themselves would fly away for fear of being devoured. Therefore, they decided that it was a good thing that the cat climbed that tree and would be there all the times it wanted; the more time the better. In that way the cat began to domesticate humans. Because the first step to domesticate an animal is that it accepts the presence of its master without attacking. The cat had obtained this, and it even made its company desirable to humans. 

Once humans had gotten used to the presence of the cat, and had accepted the feline as their master, it was easy for the cat to enter the silos. Because its body was flexible and agile, the cat was capable of jumping and climbing. And if it could not pass through the gaps of the door it would place itself by the trapdoors where the grains inside the storage would pour out, or by the air vents that are made on the roofs so that the wheat can freshen and not rot. In the barn at night, the rats and mice entered confidently to feed themselves and did not see that it was hidden between the piles of wheat. So the feline hunted comfortably and at ease, without barely making an effort. During the day, inside the barn, the cat could stay safe from the heat. 

But the cat was proud and it wasn’t enough for it to be able to hunt and be comfortable in the barns. If anything the cat really wanted people to be grateful and seek its favor. So intentionally, the cat began to leave dead mice in sight. This way humans would find them when entering the storage to take the grains; and the cat would always make sure to leave the marks of its claws visible in the little dead animals so that the humans would know who had killed them. Other times the feline would purposefully step on the blood of its victims or it would sharpen its nails on the limewash from the walls of the barn. And then, with its pads drenched in blood or covered in limewash the cat would walk everywhere in order to leave a trail with its footprints: then the people would clearly see who was giving them those services and whom they had to be grateful for getting rid of the rats and the mice who used to eat their grains before. 

Humans, despite being a little dumb and slow, ended up realizing that in the barns where they found the cat’s footprints there were no mice nor a decrease in grains. So grateful, the owner of the barn allowed the cat to stay in the barn and enter and leave whenever it wished. 

But the feline was proud and really wanted to have greater power over humans. It wanted to enter their houses and take over the best things there. And, sitting over the piles of wheat that make up people’s food, the cat started to think how it could obtain such power, and it meditated, and meditated, and meditated. 

After a lot of meditating, the feline realized that humans were enormously fond of their offspring, whom they cared for selflessly and maintained and fed for years. So the cat thought that if it managed to domesticate the human’s offspring as well, they would do everything the cat wanted and would be at its command. 

Moreover, the cat found that the people’s offspring were a joy to be around because they were always in comfortable places and wrapped up. They would emit a pleasant smell from the warm milk from their mother’s breast, the human female. So one day the cat slid inside a human’s house (we don’t know if it entered through a half-open door or through a hole in the roof, because everything was possible for the feline and nothing could resist its skills; the cat was brave and it would never be intimidated by danger). Crouched in a corner, the cat waited until it was night time and the man and his female were asleep. Then, it slid from its hiding place towards the cradle where the offspring was sleeping. The cat huddled beside it in order to enjoy its warmth, and fell asleep. Since the offspring was of little age, it resembled an animal and was, therefore, wiser than its parents —because humans start losing wisdom as they grow, and that is the cause of a sickness that they suffer which is called Reason. The human’s offspring was delighted with the cat’s warmth and the softness of its fur, which was softer and warmer than the skin of the offspring's own mother, the human female. So the offspring curdled up with the cat and they slept that way, one beside the other, much of the night. And that’s how the human’s offspring got domesticated. 

When the cat and the baby were profoundly asleep in the same cradle, a rat came out from its lair. Rats are also attracted by the smell of warm milk from the offspring’s small lips. Many times, they get close to the cradle where the children are sleeping, they get under the sheets and nibble their little ears and hands, which to rats are a delicious treat.

This is what happened that time: the rat came and got inside the cradle with the intention of eating the baby’s little ears and fingers, which tasted like milk. It didn’t realize that the cat was there, sleeping next to the warmth of the human’s offspring. Since felines have sharp ears and can see in the darkness, the cat woke up and started to watch without moving. Just as it was staring, alert in the cradle, the cat jumped over the rat, held it by the neck with its teeth and killed it with a precise blow using its back legs. 

Cats are clever and smart, and even though it was hungry and it fancied eating the rat, the feline thought that, instead of devouring the rat, it would let it fall at the foot of the cradle to get more out of it. The human would be grateful to the feline, like humans had been grateful when they started to find dead mice in the barns. In the morning when the female came to give milk to her creature, she saw the rat at the foot of the cradle and got scared; but then she saw the cat sleeping, or pretending that it was sleeping, next to the offspring and she understood that the feline had saved it from dying or that the rat would have left the creature without little ears or fingers. She had told her male, the man, what she had seen, so that he would also be grateful for the cat, who had done them a great favor. 

Since then, the humans would allow the feline to enter and leave their home whenever it wanted and to sit and sleep by the fire in the winter and lay down to rest in the coolest corner in the summer. Little by little the humans would give the cat their own best food everyday as an offering. And sometimes the cat would accept it and other times it would not, according to its preferences. Such was the submission of the human and the human’s family to the cat's desires. If the human went to sit somewhere and found the cat there, the human would go away and sit somewhere else, because it was the cat’s privilege to first choose the place to settle at every moment, and only after the cat had chosen could the human take a place. And if there was a closed door the cat would stand by it meowing so that they would open it for the feline; and the man or the woman or their offspring would come right away. They would open it and would clear the way, because the meowing of the cat was for them an order they could not disobey. 

At that time humans were used to having birds in their homes, to delight themselves with their singing or with the color of their feathers and enjoy their company. So in the homes of humans there were singing birds, cockerels, chickens, geese, and others. They would move freely in the backyard and in the rooms, and they served as company for the men and their women, and as toys for their offspring. 

This situation really bothered the cat. Because the birds were dirty and defecated everywhere, and there is nothing that bothers a cat more than filth. In addition, sometimes the birds, trusting their master’s protection, would dare peck at the food that was offered to the cat or perch themselves in some of its favorite places. And even though the cat would frighten them off, they would leave the place filled with feathers and a smell of feces. As a result, the cat had to take a lot of time cleaning the place and licking itself to remove the odor. 

For that reason the feline decided to throw the birds out of the house and started to hunt them all the time, without letting them rest. That is why humans would find every now and then a dead turtledove on top of the bed, or a goose with its throat slit in the middle of the backyard, next to the well. 

Since humans were not agile thinkers, it took them some time to understand what they had to do. Eventually, they understood and took the birds out of the house. The people locked them up in cages or put them in corrals where they took care of them and fed them. Ever since then, they did not have chickens in the bedrooms again or pigeons in the kitchen. And the cat took over the human’s house as its only master. 

Occasionally, when breeding seasons arrived or it felt like hunting in another hunting ground, the cat would leave the human’s house. The feline would disappear for days and weeks, and would return at its convenience. The cat didn’t have to ask permission to enter and leave people’s houses, barns, and gardens. When the cat would return home and the man and the woman would see it entering through the door again or sitting in its favorite corner, they would get very happy. They would say “look, the cat has returned!”, and they would make the feline new food offerings, or they would go so far as rubbing their palm on the cat’s back, which is how humans demonstrate their submission to cats. Sometimes the cat would arch its back and raise its tail, showing that it accepted those forms of submission. And other times, if the cat was not in a good mood, it would hiss and show its claws, so that the human would leave and would not bother the feline anymore. 

One day, the cat died. Feeling so helpless, the human wanted to at least preserve its body. Thus the human called some morticians, so that they would embalm the cat’s body, mummify it like they do with people, and place it in a small cat-size coffin. And then the human buried the cat with all due honors. From that day on the humans have considered the feline a god, and even ordered murals and small sculptures with its image. 

But the cat had left a vast progeny on earth. Soon other cats came to people’s houses, to take their rightful place according to their status and to receive the respect they were due. And the humans rejoiced in welcoming the reincarnation of their god. 

That was how the cats domesticated humans and became their masters, and that submission lasts to this day. 

SPANISH:

TRANSLATORS' NOTE - EMELY MARTINEZ AND FERNANDO RODRIGUEZ-MANSILLA

The story How Cats Domesticated Humans is the first fragment translated into English from the book Lo que aprendemos de los gatos. While translating this story, there were no specific cultural terms that needed to be defined because this story is written to reflect and recognize a cat’s perspective in standard Spanish. The goal of this translation has been to be as accurate as we can be with the original story.
Special thanks go to Paloma Díaz-Mas, the author, and her publishing house, Anagrama, for allowing us to translate this text. 

CITATION:

Martinez, Emely, Rodriguez-Mansilla, Fernando, Translators, "How Cats Domesticated Men, (Lo que aprendemos de los gatos, Spain, 2014) by Paloma Díaz-Mas," Spanish and Hispanic Studies Digital Gallery at HWS, Summer, 2024