Festival of Cats
The
Festival of Cats takes place on the 12th day of November every year
in the Queen’s Castle. This castle is where all of the cats, and mostly
important the Queen, on the Island reside, so it is a place of royalty. During
this festival the humans become the royals of the Island and a woman appointed
by the Queen becomes Queen for the Day. She is allowed to sit in the Queen’s
thrown, and can make any executive decisions about the festival. All cats
become the servants of the humans, serving food, cleaning up after them and
waiting on their every need. The festival starts at noon on the 12th
and ends noon the following day. Humans are allowed to venture into any area of
the castle, sleep where ever they please, take whatever items they like, and do
whatever they want during this festival. There is obviously a clear distinction
between the humans and the cats, and the cats are not allowed to interfere with
any of the festivities, but they do resent the humans during this time. Cats
are allowed to act this way every other day of the year in the castle. During
the festival, humans are even allowed to disrespect the cats as they often call
them names and make absurd food requests. Most of the festival includes people
dancing in the main hall, dressing up as cats, wearing pretend tiaras and
crowns, all while drinking excessive amounts of alcohol. The humans act in a
manner that is an over-exaggeration of the way we image cats acting when there
are no humans around. The Queen for the Day and her throne become the main
symbolic features of the event. She is treated as the real Queen is treated
every other day, and towards the end of the night she is carried on her throne
throughout the entire castle while everyone sings the Queen’s Anthem. The real
Queen is just another servant during this festival and no special attention is
paid to her whatsoever.
This
festival is resisting the fact that cats in the Kitti-Kat culture are treated
as superior to humans. Every other day of the year humans must be subservient
to their cat counterparts, but this festival allows for the tables to be
turned. The cats allow this to happen because they understand that humans may
get frustrated having to answer to smaller beings all the time. They realize
that humans need one day a year to escape these feelings. Not every human will
show up the festival though. Older individuals tend to stay at home, as do
people younger than 13. The elders have attended the festival many times before
and usually no longer hold to the negative feelings that younger people feel
about having to answer to the cats. The children do not attend because they are
not official members of society until they have gone through the Big Cat
ceremony at 13. Besides that, cats usually treat children as one of their own,
allowing them to have visits to the castle, frequently giving them presents,
and taking them for visits with the Queen. The other people that attend love
the event. They view it as a time to party, release negative energy, and to
reflect on all that has happened since the festival the previous year. Although
the cats are completely understanding of the humans’ behaviors and they are the
ones allowing this festival to take place, some feel that the festival can seem
like a temporary government takeover. While the Queen for the Day can make
executive decision about the festival, she is not allowed to make any type of
government or “real” decisions. While it isn’t a true government takeover it
serves as a symbolic takeover for the people.
In
theory everyone should be able to do whatever they want during the festival,
but the richer humans are the ones who get the best rooms in the castle, get
control over the music played, and typically get the best food and alcohol
served to them. The people with less money recognize this, but do not let this
get in the way of their having fun, as the Kitty Kat society is based on
kinship and loving one another. The politics of the festival determine who gets
what, but all people interact with each other and never exclude others from
social groups.
Participants
ascribe authenticity to the event by the amount of control the Queen for the
Day takes of festivities. For example if, one year, she just sits in the throne
and doesn’t make any kinds of decisions about the food, music, or decorations,
the festival is deemed less successful, as the whole point is for the humans to
be in charge for the day. But if one year, she makes tons of decisions about
the festival and even orders around the cats, the festival is said to be a
great success and humans feel like it has served its purpose.
In
this society, our main concerns are kinship, brotherhood, and equality. By holding this festival every year, we are
allowed to make ourselves equal to the cats, even if it just for one day, we
have the opportunity to feel like royalty. We are allowed to disrespect the
royal cats during this time which contradicts our religion because we worship
our seven ancestral cats. Another contradiction lies in that cats are
inherently superior to humans, yet for this night we act as though we are the
superior ones. The following day at noon, the festival ends and humans are the ones who stay behind and
clean the mess they made, as they must return back to their normal roles as
inferiors on Kitti-Nikki Island.
Reflective Essay
Taking
this class allowed me to think about ritual and symbol in a critical way that I
had never done before. By examining the rituals and symbols of certain
societies through a critical lens, we can determine the values and norms of
that society. Ritual is a valuable thing
that gives valuable information about a society, and we should not take for
granted how important it is. My favorite reading was Rituals in the Hospital: Giving Birth the American Way. Before
reading this article, I had never really thought of the way American women give
birth as being strange, but afterwards I definitely had a different opinion on
the birthing process in America. I thought it was interesting how we can learn
so much about our society from this process, mainly that we are a society that
is focused on technology. I also realized how much the female body is
undermined, with all the machines attached and the epidurals, it actually
offends me that our society gives such a little credit to our bodies. I also
really enjoyed reading Champagne and
Chocolate: "Taste" and Inversion in a French Wedding Ritual,
because I found the disgustingness of it all really entertaining. I loved how
from a bedpan, we could see how a society was changing and the types of things
they valued. I also really liked one of
our first readings on the Virgin of Guadalupe, because I didn’t know the
original story and why she had become a dominant symbol in Mexican culture.
After that reading, it made a lot of sense to me as to why the indigenous peoples
of Mexico were able to adopt the Catholic religion, using a familiar way of
worship.
While
I plan on continuing on with physical anthropology, I do believe what I have
learned in this course will help me in the future. I am very interested in
ethnoprimatology, which looks at how humans and non-human primates interact,
and humans’ perspectives of these animals. Many human societies who live
alongside other primate species consider these animals symbolic and give them a
place in their cosmology and mythology, as I saw in the readings on shamanism
in Amazonia. I feel as though having the knowledge of theory and applying that
to different rituals will help me, should I pursue an ethnoprimtology project
for my graduate studies.
I
think the most important thing I learned about ritual and symbol in this class
is that rituals all serve their own purposes, whether as rites of passage, or
just to bring people together to feel something. It’s important to know that
rituals aren’t just performed for fun, but that they have meaning behind them
and functions for the societies who perform them. I also think it’s important
to understand that we, too, perform rituals in our society and they are not
just reserved for “exotic”, non-Western societies.
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