India: Example of Cat Mysticism

Maneka Gandhi. A fine woman.
This is a bizarre cat story but it is inline with the mysticism and mythology that surrounds the cat. For centuries people have associated the cat with bad luck and good luck. It can be carried to extremes, when a belief entails eating a cat or parts of it.
The best known examples of eating parts of a cat is tiger bone wine or eating parts of the tiger such as the animal’s penis, which is worth about $6,000. It is believed by some, that eating bits of tiger brings strength sexual prowess. Sad isn’t it? This cat superstition is one of the causes of the gradual extinction of the Bengal tiger.
This little, recent story comes from Maneka Gandhi and her animal sanctuary/shelter: People for Animals. Maneka Gandhi calls herself an animal rights activist. I just call her a bloody nice person. I’d love to interview her. Her shelter website has some disturbing images showing how tough life can be for some unfortunate animals in India.
She reports that a man had come back her shelter to adopt another cat having adopted two previously. The man had also tried to bribe a worker at the shelter to throw cats over the shelter perimeter. He clearly wanted cats very badly.
Maneka Gandhi realised something odd was going on. She investigated but doesn’t tell us what she did (she is a smart lady, though).
She discovered that this man was getting his cats pregnant, then aborting the pregnancy and then eating the placenta to bring him good luck. Horrible.
That is a perverted and modern example of how superstition, mythology and mysticism still follows the humble domestic cat.