This white cat is clearly distressed. In the photos you can see him/her panting and he looks scared and distressed. It must be scorching hot and the cat is in trapped in the sun.
The farmers believe the cat in the bamboo cage will produce much needed rain during a devastating drought, the worst in decades, in the Ban Lueam district, Thailand.
They march along carrying the caged cat while neighbors sprinkle water on the cat. They chant an ancient tune (it does no look that ancient to me!):
“Rain, rain come pouring down. We barely had any this year. Without rain, our rice will die.”
The rains should have come in May but it has rained once since then. Twenty percent of the country has been declared emergency disaster zones.
I have sympathy for the farmers. However, I don’t think a rain dance based on superstition and which is very distressing for an unfortunate cat will produce rain. Why should such a superstitious rain dance incorporate a cat? Why did they choose a cat? Is this just another sign of how the vulnerable cat is picked on and abused and used anywhere in the world. I happens too often for my liking.
I don’t wish to be disrespectful of someone else’s culture and beliefs but I have to speak up when cats are abused like this. There is no need for it and it won’t work anyway. It is a sad indictment of silly human behaviour which hurts animals. There are other examples. It is time the world grew up and stopped being superstitious.
Science should be employed and we have to ask whether this is an example of global warming. We won’t know for sure until we get more and more devastating weather patterns which could only be caused by global warming.
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Thanks for highlighting this Michael. It is a barbaric practice, and, as ever, it’s cats who suffer because of a sickening adherence of people to ancient and pointless ignorance.
Thailand has a an undeserved reputation as a country where all are gentle, spiritual souls who wouldn’t harm a fly.
Thailand’s reputation amongst those working in rescue and conservation is the opposite. Yes there is huge inequality between the rich and poor, but it’s often the hype from westerners taking gap years/holidays that perpetuates the “joy” to be found in ceremonies where animals are abused.
The elephants, a huge pull to tourists in Thailand suffer horrific abuse as infants when they are stolen from their mothers and aggressively mobbed in a wooden cage, the purpose is to tame them.
What chance does a poor little cat have against millennia of ignorance, superstition and now greed?
None.
Poor little cats.
Oh, Lord!
Is “Siam” still considered a third world nation?
I never agree with our invading lowly nations in an effort to “fix” them. But, this cat in a cage getting soaked, sort of makes me want to rethink.
I don’t think that Thailand is considered today to be a Third World country. They are quite dynamic and heavily commercialised. But superstitions run very deep. They are hard to remove. I would like to know where the idea that a cat in a cage to make rain comes from. To someone like me it seems a bizarre idea.