The tradition of raising cats in China began to sprout during the Han Dynasty, and with the opening of the Silk Road, the Persians brought pet cat culture to the Central Plains. In the beginning, tanuki culture did not occupy much place in folk life. In each era of our history, there are representatives of specific folk entertainment cultures, such as the poetry culture of the Tang Dynasty and the peak of the bird culture in the Qing Dynasty.
With the advancement of time, the cat culture finally ushered in its peak moment during the Song Dynasty: the cat culture of the Song Dynasty period is simply more than now compared to now.
The calligraphy and painting works about cats also developed in the Song Dynasty. If we travel back to the Song Dynasty, what kind of "cat picking" scene will you see? How decent were the Song Dynasty people raising cats? Which historical celebrities of the Song Dynasty were once out-and-out cat slaves? Why are there always butterflies in song dynasty ink paintings about cats?
Today Xiaobian will take you back to history and enter the cat life of the Song Dynasty.
The full text totals 3300 words, reading time is 8 minutes, it is recommended to read after collection.
In 960, with the outbreak of the Chen Qiao Mutiny, Zhao Kuangyin (927-976 AD) officially founded the Song Dynasty. Although the political performance is not good, but in terms of the happiness of the people's life and the degree of economic development, the Song Dynasty actually far exceeded the Tang Dynasty, and the Song Dynasty's commodity economy, cultural education and science and technology innovation were a period of high development. Historians and economists have calculated that the SONG Dynasty's GDP accounted for more than 20% of the world's total economy. It is also an era when the happiness of residents is so high, which lays the foundation for the development of future civic culture.
As more money became in the pocket, folk leisure culture developed: diet, music, sports, etc., all gradually formed the scale of chain entertainment.
Under this living situation, the "pet cat" culture slowly grew. The "Tokyo Dream Hualu", "Dream Liang Record", "Yi Jianzhi" and other materials that record the history of the Song Dynasty have records of the song dynasty's cat culture.
The actual situation of national cats is even more colorful than you and we imagine: pet grooming shops, cat food stores and cat games, etc., all show the fact that the people of the Song Dynasty have a deep love for cats.
Before understanding the life of cats in the Song Dynasty, it is necessary to understand: What breeds of cats were raised in the Song Dynasty?
In the current cat class, 42 species of cats certified by CFA are generally used as a classification. Before 1,000 years, there were not so many classifications of cats: after all, there were not so many overseas breeds of cats in ancient times.
The Song Dynasty people raised cats and divided cats into only two genres: rat catchers and non-rat catchers.
At this time, it should be noted that the Chinese pastoral cat map circulating on the Internet is not from the Song Dynasty. Let's first look at what the atlas of the Chinese pastoral cat is:
This atlas was actually adapted by later generations based on a book called "Cat Garden" during the Qing Dynasty. Although the cat culture of the Song Dynasty and the Song Dynasty flourished, from various Song historical documents, the classification of cats was not strict.
The Book of Dreams records that "cats, the catching rats of man and animal." There are long-haired, white-yellow people called lion cats, can not catch rats, think of beauty, many noble officials of the people and animals, especially see your love. ”
It can be seen that cats are divided into two genres in the "Record of Dreams" record.
The practical rattrap faction of "Man and Animal Mousetrap".
"Think it's beautiful" pet pie.
At the same time, the "Yi Jianzhi" recorded another kind of cat: tabby cat. The tabby cat in this record is the prototype of the "Tanuki Cat" that we are now famous for. The Song Dynasty called this cat "Tanuki Nu" or "Flower Beaver", and the most famous thing about the Tanuki Cat is the "Tanuki Nu Tu" that was very popular in the Song Dynasty, which is Ming Xuanzong's representative calligraphy and painting work "Huaxia Tanuki Nu Tu Axis".
Ancient Chinese pictures of tanuki cats have been emerging in an endless stream, the following is the Song Dynasty painter Li Di's "Dragonfly Tanuki Nu Tu", we can compare the content of the two: there are still popular Tanuki cat elements, cats look exquisite.
No matter what the records are, the "tabby cat" and the "yellow and white" long-haired cat are the darlings of the Song Dynasty, and the phrase "the first noble officials of many provinces and the people and animals" also clearly shows the nobility of this cat: even in the families of the high-ranking officials and nobles, there must be special people to raise them.
So the question is: what exactly is the "lion cat" recorded in the "Dream Liang Record"?
In the pastoral cat breed, there is a cat called "Shandong Lion Cat", which looks like this.
It is easy to think of the "lion cat" in the literature as "Shandong lion cat". But this is certainly not the case, but this is because of two points:
First of all: the color of Shandong lion cat is divided into: tortoiseshell lion cat, white lion cat, black lion cat and black and white lion cat, and there is no "yellow and white" flower color.
Secondly: the Shandong lion cat was artificially bred deliberately from the Ming Dynasty and then handed down.
Therefore, according to the description of the Shandong lion cat and the "lion cat" of the Song Dynasty, the "lion cat" in the Song Dynasty population is actually more likely to be just an orange-white long-haired pastoral cat. Just like the picture below.
After understanding what breeds of cats were raised in the Song Dynasty, let's take a look at what are the true records of cats in the Song Dynasty.
Among the stories of raising cats in the Song Dynasty, the most widely circulated is the story of "Tanuki Cat for Prince", which is recorded in the "Bao Gong Case". In fact, this incident is purely a fabrication of Shi Yukun, a storyteller of the Qing Dynasty. However, because the story is twisted and bizarre, it is fascinating, so it has been passed down. Now the saying "tanuki for prince" is more often used as a more colloquial term for "stealing beams for pillars".
However, the royal family of the Southern Song Dynasty popular cats and loved cats, which is indeed an indisputable fact. Song Xiaozong Zhao Xuan is the most famous example.
In the second year of Shaoxing, Zhao Zhao, who had no heirs, chose the crown prince and selected 2 candidate boys among the descendants of the clan, and these two children were fat and thin. While he was being tested in the temple, a cat walked past the two children, and the fatter child reached out and kicked the tanuki. Who ever wanted to kick this kick away from their own throne. Zhao Zhuo said with a straight face: "The cat passed by by by accident, is it necessary to kick him?" You are so rash as a person, can Ann hold the national seal? So he left the thin boy in the palace, who was also the later Emperor Xiaozong.
Behind this incident, in fact, it reveals the court's love for cats. Not only the court, but also the folk want to raise a cat, but also pay attention to a lot. For example, we most often hear the "hiring a cat" story.
The Song Dynasty people raised cats, pay attention to starting from getting a cat: to rely on the "dowry"
Many people think that this is an exaggeration, just keeping a cat, making it look like "daughter-in-law passing through the door". But there is indeed factual evidence for this matter:
Autumn rats bully the cat to death, voyeur flipping the plate to stir up the night sleep. Smelling tanuki slaves will count, buy fish and wear willows to hire cicadas. --Northern Song Dynasty. Huang Tingjian's "Beggar Cat Poem"
This poem, which we translate into the vernacular, roughly means that our cat has died of old age, and the rats in the family have turned the sky upside down. I heard that someone's kitten had given birth, so I had to hurry up and buy some fresh fish to wear on the wicker as a dowry, hoping to hire back a kitten.
(Regarding the dowry, fish is popular in the north, and salt is popular in the south, because "salt" sounds like "edge", which is more sincere.) And at the time, salt was more precious than fish. ）
This poem actually leaves us with very good evidence to speculate on the cat culture of the Song Dynasty:
We said earlier that the Song Dynasty divided cats into "practical school of mouse catching" and "pet school of non-mouse catching", and you must think that pet cats will have a pampered life. In fact, in the folk, even if it is a small cat that catches mice, people raise it with a sense of ritual.
In addition to Huang Tingjian's poems as evidence, Lu You, another great poet of the Song Dynasty, was also a complete cat slave:
To hire a cicada fast, shilling on the tree light. - Land Travel
The great poet Lu You is famous for raising cats and cats, and he left more than ten poems written specifically for the cats in the family. Do we think that the ritual sense of raising cats in the Song Dynasty was limited to "hiring tanuki slaves"? Wrong, look at this poem that Lu You wrote for the kitten:
"Still should be a name, called less than a tree", that is to say, when the kitten is hired by the dowry, there must be a very romantic and ritualistic thing: name.
Is it exactly the same as our current cat life? It's just that the name Lu You looks very casual: "Called less than 菟" means: name it Little Tiger! In fact, Lu You also gave many of his kittens very nice names, such as: Cher, Pink Nose and so on. It was a very qualified shoveler, and the name seemed to be similar to what we have now.
Not only "hiring cats" and naming is a popular practice in the city, in the ancient capital of Kaifeng and Lin'an, according to the "Tokyo Dream Record" record, the market has become popular cat food stores, there are many special shops in the city to sell cat beds, and in the shop, the owner's cat can also enjoy the shearing service, which should be the earliest pet grooming service.
It was in this atmosphere of happiness and prosperity that the "little tanuki slaves" of the Song Dynasty lived a life of pampering and pampering.
So it is not surprising that the Song Dynasty popularized so many cat-related graphic records. But until now we have not explained a problem: that is, why does the ancient people's calligraphy and paintings always appear in the cat playing pictures of a butterfly?
The sharp-eyed little friend must have found that the cat picture handed down from the Song Dynasty always appeared butterflies in the picture. Is this because cats like to catch butterflies? It's not that simple. The elements of cats and butterflies in the paintings should start from Song Huizong's "Cat Butterfly Diagram".
The ancients took "cat" as "耄", "butterfly" as "耋", and "cat butterfly" as "耋" meaning, taking its longevity meaning. In addition to representing the social environment at that time, the paintings of the ancients often revealed other aspirations. In addition to butterflies often appearing in paintings with cats, there are also peony flowers that represent auspicious and rich flowers that are often used by the ancients to paint, and this habit is still the same today, such as the following picture of the "Peony Cat Butterfly", which is actually not only a picture of cats playing, but also contains the author's expectations for life.
Understanding the history of cat breeding in the Song Dynasty, we take a look at the current cat life, and you find that in fact, in ancient times, the treatment of kittens was not worse than now. What a beauty bath. Cat food toys, kittens have enjoyed it 1,000 years ago. Too many historical documents describe cats with strong words such as "love very much" and "extreme love".
The development of folk entertainment is getting hotter and hotter, in fact, it also reflects the current situation of people living and working in peace and contentment at that time. When people are no longer overworked for food, clothing, shelter and transportation, what is the need to enjoy life properly?
So you see, when we indulge in picking up cats and can't extricate ourselves, it actually shows that our motherland is becoming more and more developed, and the people are getting richer and richer.