CATAUXI, a numerous cannibal tribe of South American Indians of the Purus river district, Brazil. They are a fine warlike race, with remarkably clear complexions and handsome features; round wrists and ankles they wear rings of twisted hair. They cultivate mandioc, and make pottery and bark canoes.
CATAWBAS (from the Choctaw for “divided”), a tribe of North American Indians of Siouan stock; formerly the dominant people of South Carolina. Some of their divisions extended into North Carolina. They are now almost extinct, but were at one time able to send nearly 2000 “braves” into battle. In the American War of Independence they furnished a valuable contingent to the South Carolina troops. They then occupied a number of small towns on the Catawba river, but they afterwards leased their land and removed to the territory of the Cherokees, with whom they had been formerly at war. There, however, they did not long remain, but returned to a reservation in their original district. Their affinities have not been very clearly made out, and by Albert Gallatin they were grouped with the Cherokees, Choctaws, Muskogees and Natchez. A vocabulary of sixty of their words was published by Horatio Hale in vol. ii. of the Transactions of the American Ethnological Society in 1848; and a much fuller list—about 300—collected by Oscar M. Lieber, the geologist, in 1856, made its appearance in vol. ii. of Collections of the South Carolina Historical Society, 1858. Of the one hundred Catawbas still said to be surviving, few, if any, can claim to be full-blooded. They are in the Catawba Reservation in York county, South Carolina. The name is familiar in connexion with the white American wine, the praises of which have been sung by Longfellow. The grape from which the wine is obtained was first discovered about 1801, near the banks of the Catawba river, and named by Major Adlum in 1828, but it is now cultivated extensively in Illinois, Ohio and New York, and especially on the shores of Lake Erie.
See also Handbook of American Indians (Washington, 1907).
CATCH THE TEN, sometimes Called Scotch Whist, a game played with a pack of 36 cards, from ace, king, queen to six in each suit, the ace being highest both in play and cutting. In trumps, however, the knave ranks highest. Any number from two to eight may play. If an even number, partners are cut for; if odd, each plays for himself. An odd number of players sit as they like; four players sit as at whist; six playing in two sides sit so that no two partners shall be next each other; six playing three sides sit so that two opponents shall divide each pair; eight are arranged in alternate pairs. After cutting, the cards are dealt according to the number of players. The last card is turned up for the trump. When five or seven play, the six of spades is usually omitted; when eight play, the four sixes are thrown out. The eldest hand leads any card he chooses and all must follow suit if able, the penalty for a revoke being the loss of the game. The tricks are not kept separate but gathered in by one player for his side. At the end of the deal there are six hands of six cards on the table. The players first play out the first two hands, next the second two and finally the last two, the trump card remaining on the table until the first four hands are played out. The game is 41 points, the object of the play being to win the cards which have a special value. These are, with their values: knave of trumps 11, ace of trumps 4, king of trumps 3, queen of trumps 2, ten of trumps 10. All other cards have no counting value. As the ten can be taken by any other honour the object is to “catch the ten.”
CATECHISM (from Gr. κατηχεῖν, teach by word of mouth), a compendium of instruction (particularly of religious instruction) arranged in the form of questions and answers. The custom of catechizing, common to all civilized antiquity, was followed in the schools of Judaism and in the Early Church, where it helped to preserve the Gospel narrative (see [Catechumen]).
The catechism as we know it is intended primarily for children and uneducated persons. Its aim is to instruct, and it differs from a creed or confession in not being in the first instance an act of worship or a public profession of belief. The first regular catechisms seem to have grown out of the usual oral teaching of catechumens, and to have been compiled in the 8th and 9th centuries. Among them the work of Notker Labeo and of Kero, both monks of St Gall, and that of Ottfried of Weissenburg in Alsace deserve mention. But it is not until the first stirrings of revolt against the hierarchy, which preceded the Reformation, that they became at all widespread or numerous. The Waldenses of Savoy and France, the Brethren (small communities of evangelical dissenters from the medieval faith) of Germany, and the Unitas Fratrum of Bohemia all used the same catechism (one that was first printed in 1498, and which continued to be published till 1530) for the instruction of their children. It was based on St Augustine’s Enchiridion, and considers (a) Faith, i.e. the Creed, (b) Hope, i.e. the Lord’s Prayer, and (c) Love, i.e. the Decalogue.