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01/06/11(Thu)04:24 No.13416542>The story, passed on by a pregnant woman is about cats that get jealous of newborn infants. As it was described to me, the cats, no longer afforded the attention they once got prior to the infant's birth, will actually attempt to suffocate the infant. Specifically, she described a cat, "sucking the wind out of the baby," by placing its nose in the infants mouth while the infant is asleep. This immediately seemed unreasonably far-fetched, yet she maintains it's true since she has it "on the authority" of a number of other women.
>Cats have long been viewed as evil, and for centuries a number of superstitions featuring their bringing bad luck have abounded. Similar to the "sucking life from a child by swallowing its breath" superstition was one about not raising a kitten and a baby together, lest the cat thrive and the child waste away. In that superstition, the cat was supposed to be stealing the child's vitality by magic.
>As to how widely believed the "breath sucking" tale is, a 1929 article in the Nebraska State Journal quoted a doctor as having said he had seen "the family pet in the very act of sucking a child's breath, lying on the baby's breast, a paw on either side of the babe's mouth, the cat's lips pressing those of the child and the infant's face pale as that of a corpse, its lips with the blueness of death."
re-stat cats /tg/ |