In message <[log in to unmask]>, Automatic digest processor
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>I am still rather puzzled by your statement that cats mummified in grotesque
>positions are proof positive that they were placed there unwillingly, unless
>they were actually set in the plaster which is not the situation with the
>mummified cats which were alleged in the program to have been used to ward
>off witches. How do you get a live cat placed within a wall cavity to hold a
>grotesque position while it starves to death and why would the position it
>died in be any different from that of a cat which was trapped accidentally
>within the same cavity?

I've seen cats which were either put into walls dead, or they
unfortunately starved to death in the wall at the very moment they put
their claws into a mouse.

People's archaeologically recoverable actions and what we understand of
their professed faith are sometimes at variance.  I suspect that some
people will be satisfied by explaining this as 'hypocracy' or 'sin', but
I've heard some much more interesting explorations - my lunchtime
reading this week has been a paper by Nicholas Thomas (I may have the
first name wrong) in 'Archaeologies of Colonialism' (1999), who is
looking at Christianity in Samoa.

With best wishes,

Pat
(who wonders where and when the perception started that being kind to
animals is a fundamental of Christian belief - and cui bono, apart, of
course, from the cats)





--
Pat Reynolds
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   "It might look a bit messy now,
                    but just you come back in 500 years time"
   (T. Pratchett)