This post is like kicking a dead cat. Everyone has an opinion, but somewhere there has to be an expert on nineteenth century building customs. I will put a note on the urban history list and see if anyone has heard of this there.
Has anyone come across a raccoon or squirrel? If animals are found dead in wall cavities because they get trapped there accidentally, wouldn't it be more than just cats? Also, it is my understanding that some of the cats found have been stuffed. The cat found in the walls at the Sloan House museum in London was stuffed and mounted on a stand I believe.
Speaking of which, can we get a reference for the cat found in the wall cavity holding a mouse?
There are other seventeenth and eighteenth century building customs that survived the guilds and stayed in practice into the nineteenth century (placing a pine tree during the "topping out" of the roof; or roofers pounding coins onto roof joists). It would not surprise me if ritualistic customs were being maintained by family builders who did not conceive of what they were doing as pagan, it was just something they had always done (not unlike contractors throwing pop cans into foundations today, they think its funny that their can might some day be found and in away they feel like they got away with something).
My problem with the concept, however, is that in two decades of researching nineteenth century building customs I have never come across a text where a builder discusses placing dead cats in a wall nor have I seen receipts or invoices for stuffing a dead cat. Granted, archaeologists confront this type of disparity between research sources all the time. But to a building historian it is troubling.
PS. Dan, I want to hear the stories about exploring historic houses...
Neal Hitch
Ohio Historical Society
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Daniel H. Weiskotten [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Monday, October 25, 2004 10:56 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: dead Cats in Walls
>
> I really want to jump in on this one, as I have plenty of "dead cat and
> other desiccated animals in the walls" stories from my days working
> contracting and exploring historic houses, but I'll refrain because
> somewhere in the world it is dinner time. All I can say is from all that I
> have seen, I would be hard pressed to come to the conclusion that any had
> been put there purposefully, even knowing how sick some of my fellow good
> old boys are / were. Hiding of boots, thermoses, gloves, lunches, etc., is
> a different story.
>
> Dan W.
>
>
>
>
> At 03:14 PM 10/25/2004 -0700, you wrote:
> >I didn't see the original posting about this...and probably shouldn't
> >bother replying...but...I have seen a (dead) desicated or "mummified" cat
> >that was found under a house floor (in the crawl space). Upon drying...the
> >skin pulls back...so it would be 'normal' for the mouth to be gaping
> >wide...and the form to look "grotesque" (contorted)...even if the animal
> >died while curled up sleeping. My point being, they don't have to die a
> >traumatic death to look this way...natural desication creates such a
> >look...from my limited experience with such dead bodies. Cats can crawl
> >into small spaces...and die 'accidentally' inside walls, etc. I doubt
> >many, if any, were put into the walls on purpose (unwillingly, etc.).
> >
> >At 07:15 PM 10/22/2004 +0100, you wrote:
> >>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.
>
>
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