The Cat.
The cat is everywhere invested with demoniac qualities, and is the companion of the witch. In “Macbeth” the first witch says, “Thrice the brinded cat has mewed.” Among Muhammadans the cat is a pure animal, and to kill a cat is very unlucky, and brings on trouble and sickness. So, among Hindus, the killing of a cat can be expiated only by the performance of the rite known as the Prajapati Yajna, which secures the birth of male issue. They say that Mahâdeva and Pârvatî were one day playing dice, and Pârvatî called in Ganesa in his form as a rat to upset the dice with his tail and cause her to make a good throw. Mahâdeva was wroth, and called in a demon like a cat, but he was afraid to kill Ganesa. Then Mahâdeva cursed any one in after days who should kill a cat. We have the same tale in the Rasâlu cycle, where the rat of Dhol Râja changes the course of the game between him and Râja Sarkap. The cat is respected because she is the vehicle of Shashthî, the protectress of children, and part of the orthodox Hindu rite at dinner is giving food to the cat. Among the Orâons, as we have seen, the birth fiend Chordeva comes in the form of a cat.
The Rat and Mouse.
The rat is sacred as the vehicle of Ganesa. In Bombay, “to call a rat a rat is considered by lower classes of Hindus as unlucky, and so they call him Undir Mâma, or ‘the rat uncle.’ He is so called because he is probably supposed to be the spirit of an uncle. It is considered a great sin to kill a rat, and so, when rats give trouble in a house, the women of the house make a vow to them that, if they cease troubling, sweet balls will be given to them on a certain day, and it is believed by the Hindus that when such a vow has been made, the rats cease troubling them for some time.”[114] In parts of England it is believed that a field mouse creeping over the back of a sheep gives it paralysis, and that this can be cured only by shutting up a mouse in a hollow of the trunk of the witch elm or witch hazel tree and leaving it to die of famine.[115]
The curiously deformed idiot boys which are collected at the shrine of Shâh Daula at Gujarât are known from their wizened appearance as the rats of Shâh Daula.[116]
The Squirrel.
The little Indian squirrel is called in the Panjâb Râma Chandra Kâ Bhagat, or the saint of Râma Chandra, because when he was building the bridge across the strait to Lanka, the squirrel helped by shaking dust from his tail, and the god stroked it on the back, hence the dark marks which it bears to the present day. Many of the Drâvidian tribes claim descent from the squirrel.