DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.811#0150
H4
CHITAS AND CATS CATCHING DUCKS
Hunting-
leopards
or Chitas.
Egyptian
Caffre
cats
trained
to catch
ducks.
Indi-
genous
Cretan
versions
—pheas-
ants or
water-
fowl.
copper,1 which fill in the outlines of the hunting-leopards, water-fowl, fish,
and papyrus clumps that make up these spirited designs and the details of
which are marked by niello lines and dots.
The animals represented belong to two distinct species. In one of
these we may recognize the hunting-leopard, the yellow skin being rendered
in each case by a thin gold plate, overlaid on the silver. The spots are
indicated by dots and dashes, and the rings on the somewhat bushy tail are
clearly featured. As the range of the hunting-leopard or Chita extends over
a large part of Africa and through Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia to the
Ganges there is no difficulty in this attribution. It is possible, moreover,
though its chief prey is antelopes and gazelles, that it was also trained to
seize wild-fowl. There does not seem to be any reference, however, to the
use of this animal for hunting in Egypt. It looks as if the Minoan artist
had inserted an episode drawn from a more Oriental quarter, and may have
attributed to the Chita a function not properly his own.
For the other animal, of cat-like aspect, our choice is certainly limited
by the Nilotic character of the landscape in which it is set. It cannot be
doubted that we have here a Minoan version of one of the hunting-scenes,
dear to Egyptian painters, in which the domesticated Caffre cats are em-
ployed to capture wild duck amidst the papyrus thickets of the river-bank.
Though the form of the head here is somewhat more weasel-like, the relatively
dark back, contrasting with the paler under-part of the body and the sub-
dued character of the spotting and striping, is quite characteristic of the
Caffre cat.2
Wild cats are still known in the Island,3 and we have seen this theme
acclimatized by Minoan artists, and transferred to the rocky Cretan landscape
on the fresco of Hagia Triada4 and, in a more fragmentary shape, at
Knossos,3 while in both cases, apparently, the animal is engaged in chasing
a pheasant instead of a water-fowl. In a part of the rocky background,
indeed, of the Hagia Triada Fresco we see the papyrus of the ' Nile pieces'
hybridized in the Minoan manner and turned into a kind of flower in
1 Only apparently in the interior of the
ears of the leopard and the band round a
duck's neck on Coloured PI. XX, d. It is of a
vivid red. In the coloured reproduction of this
face of the blade in Perrot and Chipiez (vi,
PI. XVII) this feature is not indicated.
2 I'elis Caffra. Cf. R. Lydekker, The
Royal Natural History, i, p. 421, Figure.
3 A wild cat, Felts agrius, is not uncommon
in Crete, and, according to Miss Dorothea Bate
(in Trevor Battye, Camping in Crete, p. 255),
'seems to resemble most closely specimens
from Sardinia'.
4 P. of M., i, p. 538, Fig. 391 (F. Halb-
herr, Resti dell' eta Micenea scofierti ad Haghia
Triada presso Phaestos, PI. VIII).
5 Ibid., Fig. 392, a, b. The eye there is blue,
like that of a Siamese cat.
CHITAS AND CATS CATCHING DUCKS
Hunting-
leopards
or Chitas.
Egyptian
Caffre
cats
trained
to catch
ducks.
Indi-
genous
Cretan
versions
—pheas-
ants or
water-
fowl.
copper,1 which fill in the outlines of the hunting-leopards, water-fowl, fish,
and papyrus clumps that make up these spirited designs and the details of
which are marked by niello lines and dots.
The animals represented belong to two distinct species. In one of
these we may recognize the hunting-leopard, the yellow skin being rendered
in each case by a thin gold plate, overlaid on the silver. The spots are
indicated by dots and dashes, and the rings on the somewhat bushy tail are
clearly featured. As the range of the hunting-leopard or Chita extends over
a large part of Africa and through Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia to the
Ganges there is no difficulty in this attribution. It is possible, moreover,
though its chief prey is antelopes and gazelles, that it was also trained to
seize wild-fowl. There does not seem to be any reference, however, to the
use of this animal for hunting in Egypt. It looks as if the Minoan artist
had inserted an episode drawn from a more Oriental quarter, and may have
attributed to the Chita a function not properly his own.
For the other animal, of cat-like aspect, our choice is certainly limited
by the Nilotic character of the landscape in which it is set. It cannot be
doubted that we have here a Minoan version of one of the hunting-scenes,
dear to Egyptian painters, in which the domesticated Caffre cats are em-
ployed to capture wild duck amidst the papyrus thickets of the river-bank.
Though the form of the head here is somewhat more weasel-like, the relatively
dark back, contrasting with the paler under-part of the body and the sub-
dued character of the spotting and striping, is quite characteristic of the
Caffre cat.2
Wild cats are still known in the Island,3 and we have seen this theme
acclimatized by Minoan artists, and transferred to the rocky Cretan landscape
on the fresco of Hagia Triada4 and, in a more fragmentary shape, at
Knossos,3 while in both cases, apparently, the animal is engaged in chasing
a pheasant instead of a water-fowl. In a part of the rocky background,
indeed, of the Hagia Triada Fresco we see the papyrus of the ' Nile pieces'
hybridized in the Minoan manner and turned into a kind of flower in
1 Only apparently in the interior of the
ears of the leopard and the band round a
duck's neck on Coloured PI. XX, d. It is of a
vivid red. In the coloured reproduction of this
face of the blade in Perrot and Chipiez (vi,
PI. XVII) this feature is not indicated.
2 I'elis Caffra. Cf. R. Lydekker, The
Royal Natural History, i, p. 421, Figure.
3 A wild cat, Felts agrius, is not uncommon
in Crete, and, according to Miss Dorothea Bate
(in Trevor Battye, Camping in Crete, p. 255),
'seems to resemble most closely specimens
from Sardinia'.
4 P. of M., i, p. 538, Fig. 391 (F. Halb-
herr, Resti dell' eta Micenea scofierti ad Haghia
Triada presso Phaestos, PI. VIII).
5 Ibid., Fig. 392, a, b. The eye there is blue,
like that of a Siamese cat.