Nigerians are not animal lovers. I would go on a limb to say we just tolerate animals. Many people would be quick to say, “Oh but a lot of Nigerians have dogs they love.”
This is true.
However, dogs are furry moneybags, especially if they are females and of good pedigree. In as much as we (barely) tolerate animals, cats have to be the most disadvantaged of the lot.
The unbearable dislike of cats is almost a culture in Nigeria and is common among the old and young alike.
Cats are evil, they say. Can’t you see how its eyes are glowing?
Cats are devil spawns and mediums for malevolent beings.
Cats spit at you and blind you.
Cats are witches…or like we say in Nigeria, winches.
Hearing a cat meow (and at night to boot) is all it takes to have a Nigerian mother reaching for her bible and donning her armor of anointing oil as she prepares for spiritual warfare. Sherimamas, rebosatabostas, and other dialects of heavenly tongues punctuate the air as they bind any spirit hidden under the cat’s mesmerizing gaze. A cat is never just a cat or an ordinary animal. There is always something sinister to be unearthed. It is not uncommon to be walking the road in the early hours of the morning and see cat roadkill. People think little of it. The way they see it, they have one less witch to deal with.
We do not fear the unknown. We fear what we think we know about the unknown.
Teal Swan
The first time my younger brother casually mentioned he wanted to get a cat, he was met with so much resistance. On the lower end of the spectrum were comments on how cats were selfish, attention-seeking, and disease-ridden. On the higher end of the spectrum were comments reiterating the “spiritual implications” of having a cat. Finally, he threw caution to the wind and bought a pair. We named them Roman and Nikita.
I never cared much for animals as a child or an adult. Sure, they were cute and all, but they were better off loved from a distance. My mantra then was: Anything with fur, fangs, fins, and feathers had no place living with human beings. Though I never subscribed to the belief that cats were witches, I wasn’t too crazy about them either. But somehow I was excited when my younger brother told me he was on his way home with the cats. Fast forward many months and four cats later (we lost two out of the four) and I would have to say getting the critters was one of the best decisions of 2021.
I don’t think there is anything that demystifies someone or something as much as living with them. You get to see all three parts of them: the parts they show people, the parts they hide like blood money, and the parts they are not aware of. I hope I don’t lose my Nigerian badge for saying this but having a cat is a bit like having a child. Yes, they are independent and pristine animals but they are also very needy and attention-seeking. If I had a dollar for every time Nikita or the smaller cat, Pim-Pim crawled onto my keyboard just to get my attention while I was writing, I’d be rich now.
They can be very affectionate too. Nikita is usually more affectionate when she sees you first thing in the morning, when she sees you after you’ve been gone all day, or when she wakes up from sleep. When someone leaves the house, even for a short while, she climbs on the door and keeps meowing till you come back. Pim-Pim is affectionate all the time; she gets über-affectionate when you are eating and she wants some. Pim-Pim always wants to eat. My elder brother jokingly says she has an abyss for a belly. My Mum calls her elicha anuba ogu (first we eat, then we fight).
Cats are also very playful and would sometimes hide when they see you round a corner, then jump out to scare you. Watching them do their thing, you realize that though their life is simpler, they are not so different from human beings. After they eat, they rub against you briefly before going to play (or sleep, in Nikita’s case).
Ever since we got the cats, we have gotten tons of negative comments, some funny and others downright dark. I will just talk about three to get my point across. The first time was when the plumber came to do some repairs. He came with another guy that fixed the windows. At that point, we had only Nikita. After staring at her for a long while, he hissed in disgust.
“Unu chocha ife unu ga e go o bulu pusu? Pussy cat sochachalu m oyi soluo m echi. Mgbe obuna ha na-alacha onwe fa. Kama m ga ego pusu, m go Nkita. At least o ga enye m ego. Ike ya gwu m, m gbuo ya lienu at least” (You guys looked for what to buy and decided to buy a cat? Cats disgust me to no end. Always licking themselves. I’d rather buy a dog than a cat. At least it will fetch me money. When I’m tired of it, I can kill it and eat at the very least.) (N.B: Dog meat is a delicacy in some parts of Nigeria.)
The other guy laughed and expressed his agreement. Before they left, they asked us to intensify prayers because of “this thing” we brought into our home.
The second time was when a family friend came around. My younger brother, Emmanuel, was carrying Nikita and playing with her like he normally does. The two of them are awfully close. On seeing how close to his face the cat was, the man told Emmanuel to be careful and not let the cat come so close to his mouth as cats carry a lot of diseases. Emmanuel adjusted her so she was not so close to his face. He continued stroking her fur. Nikita started purring. The man now exclaimed:
“Ehe! I fulu ya. O oya ndi ahu na su ife n’obi ya…”(Can you see it now? It’s the diseases bubbling in her throat)
“We all fear what we don’t understand…”
Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol
The third time was at the vet. After staring long and hard at my brother who was carrying and playing with Nikita to calm her down before her shots, a guy who came to the vet with his dog asked my brother:
“Guy, so you go market, count money buy cat?”
My brother replied in the affirmative.
“Why?” he pressed on.
“Nothing. I just like am.”
“Just that? You just like am?? Finish?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes,” my brother replied.
“Omo! I hate cats like tomorrow no dey. If person give me gun, walahi I fit kill all the cats wey dey this world.”
My brother was dumbfounded. Later that day, as he was telling me what happened, he asked me what was wrong with people. It was one thing to dislike something passively and yet another thing to the extent of wanting to kill every last one of its kind.
What we don’t understand, we fear. What we fear, we judge as evil. What we judge as evil, we attempt to control. And what we cannot control… we attack.
Dan Brown
It is very easy and, dare I say, natural to hate what we don’t understand. Humans value conformity and distrust peculiarity. It keeps us safe because sometimes foreign things can actually be bad news. I feel the fear of the unknown, much like other fears we have today, is a product of the residual fears of our ancestors. Back then, the unknown could be a lion, and accepting it with open arms instead of being wary meant you became lunch. This fear of the unknown ensured the safety and the continuity of humanity.
Today, we see instances of the fear of the unknown around us every day. We home in on things we don’t understand, poke at it warily from a distance, and form narratives about it without getting to know it.
This is why things like xenophobia exist.
This is why your grandmother thinks computers, and phones are evil.
This is why people are wary of religions that aren’t theirs.
This is why most Nigerians think cats are demonic.
When we don’t understand something, we become afraid of it. We then categorize it as evil, and when we cannot control the perceived evil, we attack it.
One interesting thing about the fear of the unknown is how we always look for reasons to justify our hate for said unknown. Even if the unknown in question does 99 things right, they are judged by the one thing they did or could not do right. I think this also zeroes into the Pygmalion/Rosenthal effect where our expectations often become self-fulfilling prophecies.
The solution lies in this statement Tuvok made in Star Trek: The Voyager:
We often fear what we do not understand; our best defense is knowledge
To conquer the fear of the unknown, we have to first be aware we are only scared because of the foreignness of the thing in question and then make genuine, concerted efforts to understand it. In understanding the unknown, you learn that:
- Foreigners are people too. While the bad eggs get a lot of air time, there are good ones among them.
- Computers and phones can cause certain physical and psychological issues when overused and abused. Nevertheless, they connect people, make learning more ergonomic and information, ubiquitous.
- While some aspects of religion are noxious, it brings a lot of positives too.
- Cats are not demonic. Like every other animal, they get aggressive when cornered or attacked, but they are not demonic. The glow in their eyes at night is not the devil manifesting. It is simply the result of a reflective surface in their eyes called the tapetum lucidum which helps them see better at night.
My Mum’s cousin was always so afraid and wary of cats. Our owning cats helped her get over that fear and see beyond some myths associated with them. Last Saturday, she was bold and comfortable enough to stroke Pim-Pim. While watching the cats play-fight and perform silly antics, she laughingly said something to my Mum that would stay with me:
“Mana Caro i ma nokatakwa nwe BP na I na-ekili umu ife a. Ife ha na ha eme o kwa the same thing umuaka na-eme na fa noko onu…” (But Caro, your BP will always be OK whenever you’re watching these critters. They are doing the same thing children do when they stay together.)
This is understanding talking.
Originally published on Medium.
Like what you read? Check out The Purrfect Approach to Life to read more about my cats.
If you prefer musings and reviews, check out The Game of Sore Losers, and Into the Psychology of Dolarhyde from Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon, respectively.
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