Historical Background
The history of the domestic cat began about eight thousand years ago when cats first started hanging around human settlements because they provided easy access to food and shelter. Cats would eat the rodents that threatened our grain stores and sleep in our barns. In other words, the cat chose to seek out human companionship to gain important resources that they needed for their survival.
It was not until the nineteenth century, however, that cat-loving humans started breeding cats deliberately to create animals with certain appearances or demeanors. Cats were never bred for specific hunting or herding tasks the way dogs were, and consequently, the domestic cats we know today have changed very little genetically from the wild cats that first hung around our ancient farms. That explains why the differences between cat breeds are not as great as the differences between, say, a Border Collie and a Dachshund.
Scientists do not completely agree on how many different cat breeds there are in the world, so the numbers you can find vary greatly depending on your source. While Encyclopedia Britannica only lists fifteen cat breeds, The Cat Fanciers’ Association (CFA), the largest American cat registration body, recognizes forty-five different breeds as of 2022. Among these different cat breeds, many have an interesting origin story, and we are going to feature some of them here. The first post in this series dealt with the Maine Coon cat, and the second breed we will look at is the Siamese.
The Siamese Cat
The Siamese cat is one of the oldest cat breeds in the entire world. Today, the breed has different sub-categories, but we will focus on the Traditional Siamese, lovingly nicknamed the “Applehead,” due to the head shape mimicking an apple. The Traditional Siamese is believed to have originated in Thailand, formerly known as Siam, around the 14th Century. More precisely, they are said to have come from the Ayutthaya Kingdom. We know this for a fact because the Siamese appears in an ancient manuscript from the area called Tamra Maew, or “The Cat-Book of Poems”. It makes mention of dark-pointed cats, which suggests the Siamese were around to help inspire the writing.
Domesticated by Siam royalty, the Traditional Siamese was known as a mystical creature that could bestow wisdom and magical powers on humans. As such, they had to be respected and honored by all and were often presented as gifts from the royal family to friends, relatives, and visiting dignitaries. Since they were held in such high regard, many myths sprung up around them. One such myth characterizes cats of the Siamese breed as soul guardians, charged with receiving human souls upon death. So, if a royal family member was showing signs of death, a special Siamese cat was selected in advance to perform the duty of Soul Keeper. Royal Soul Keeper cats would live out their lives in a special cat temple, thoroughly pampered by monks and priests.
Another myth aims to explain why so many cats of the Siamese breed were born cross-eyed and with crooked, kinked tails. It describes how a group of Siamese cats was tasked with guarding a golden, royal goblet. These cats took their duties seriously and stared at the goblet with such intensity that their eyes crossed. To give the goblet extra protection, they also wrapped their tails around it so tightly that they became permanently bent. In our modern time, we know, of course, that these traits result from genetics and breeding. Some Siamese cats are still born with crossed eyes and crooked tails, but it has become less common today. Now, such traits are not popular among cat lovers and have been selectively bred out.
The Siamese breed is known for its sleek, distinctive appearance. Most Traditional Siamese cats are of a silver-gray color with a white belly, and their eyes are varying shades of blue. However, within the Siamese breed, there is great color variation. The coat of a Siamese can be orange, brown, cream, and even blue or lilac colored. Like our hair, the color of a cat’s coat is determined by genetics. The patterns of their coats are created by modifier genes, and all cats of the Siamese breed have a special modifier gene that inhibits pigment from developing in the fur. We call that albinism. So why are all Siamese cats not white? The answer to that question has to do with temperature. Albinism can only affect the cat’s fur above a certain temperature (approximately between 100 and 102.5 degrees Fahrenheit). If the cat’s body drops below 100 degrees—or the cat is in a colder environment—the coat color genes will start carrying pigment to the fur again. The womb of the mother cat is very warm, so this explains why many Siamese cats are born completely white and only develop their markings in the weeks following birth or after exposure to the cooler, outside world. A cat’s body is cooler around the nose, ears, paws, and tail, which is why pigment on Siamese cats is most common in these areas.
Pigmentation has also impacted the eyesight of the Siamese cat. As mentioned before, Traditional Siamese cats have blue eyes, but the pigmentation responsible for this striking eye color makes it more difficult for them to see finer details in the dark.
Here are three fun facts about them that you might not have heard before:
Fact 1: The first Siamese cat in America belonged to President Rutherford B. Hayes’s wife, Lucy. Her Siamese cat, named Siam, was gifted to her by David B. Sickels, a U.S. diplomat serving at the consul in Thailand in 1878. Siam the cat soon became a favorite of their daughter, Fanny, and was given free rein of the White House.
Fact 2: In the 1960s, two clever Siamese cats helped expose espionage! The two kitties lived at the Dutch Embassy in Moscow, Russia, and enjoyed hanging out in the Ambassador’s study. One day, they both suddenly jumped to their paws, arched their backs, and began hissing and clawing at the wall. Knowledgeable about cats, the Ambassador, Henri Helb, believed his two companions had heard something his human ear couldn’t detect¬—and he was right. They had, in fact, alerted him to the presence of 30 tiny microphones hidden in the wall!
Fact 3: Siamese cats are big talkers! They like to have long conversations with their human servants and will let you know if they are hungry, cold, lonely, happy, or feeling playful. They often vocalize using loud, low-pitched sounds that, on more than one occasion, have been mistaken for the crying of a human baby.
