Last month, I was given a kitten. I had mentioned how I missed my cat in the States and that maybe I would want a cat here. Lo and behold, one of the teachers shows up at my house with a tiny orange kitten. I’m glad that I have her; she entertains me in a way that only kittens can entertain. Her name is Julius. One thing about Julius is that, like most cats in Thailand, she has a kinked tail.
Rather than her tail being straight and ending in a point, it ends with a kind of ball and the length isn’t proportional to her body. If you feel it, you can feel the tail bones kind of knotted up inside of it. This isn’t the result of an accident; she was born this way.
I was wondering why cats’ tails are like that in Thailand, so I went searching for an answer. Of course, I found out that it’s genetic but I also found some neat myths and legends surrounding it.
One legend says that the Buddha said that nothing on this Earth is perfect, and that cats were the exception to that. So their tails were broken so that they would no longer be the perfect creature.
Similar to that is a Chinese myth that says that perfect creatures are allowed into heaven and there are a limited number of spaces. Because cats are too perfect, they would take all of the spaces and so their tails were broken to give them an imperfection.
One myth says that a princess went to wash her hands in a river and that she didn’t have anywhere to put her rings. A cat offered its tail to her and kinked it so that the rings wouldn’t fall off.
Ultimately, though, it is a genetic anomaly. And it doesn’t detract from the cuteness of Julius in the least. In fact, I think it gives her character.