Why are people mean to cats on Halloween?

Question

Especially black cats?

Answer 1

Because there are a lot of sick bastards in the world, and they think because it's Halloween, that somehow makes their antisocial and immoral behavior okay.

Answer 2

People who are mean to cats on Halloween are NOT pagans, just to clear the air. They were never sacrificed in any rituals or used to call evil spirits.

Black cats are especially targeted because of their familiarity and association with Witches. So, the church paints some lies about the pagans (or country dwellers who had yet to convert to Christianity) by saying that Witches take the form of cats on Halloween to spread their evil and to sneak into windows to steal babies to eat. Therefore ignorant brain washed people started attacking cats. Sadly, it still continues into a modern world.

Answer 3

Man who ACT strong is really weak & will hurt others. Man who protect the weak is strong. Not sure, but it's become a Macho thing for some weak men to hate cats.

On the other hand, there are lots of macho men who love cats. Guess it depends if you grew up with cats and/or how your parents raised you?

Answer 4

I think they are probably mean to cats because they are supersticious. If they are, then a black cat crossing your path is NOT a good thing!!!! I think that black cats have just become a Halloween custom and people are scared of them... just like bats.

Answer 5

i wasnt aware that people are mean to cats on halloween..i guess if this is so..its because witches cats were supposed to be blackkkhowever anyone mean to a cat on halloween or any other time should be shot at dawn

Answer 6

OMG, I used to have a sweet old black cat named Onyx that loved to hang out on our front porch. One year, a few days before Halloween I caught 2 college aged guys (we live in a 3 college town) trying to sneak up on her to catch her. I ran them off, but I shudder to think what would have happened to my sweetie if they had caught her. From then on, we kept her in the house from Sept. until Nov.

Answer 7

For thousands of years, cats have been regarded as mysterious creatures with supernatural powers. These beliefs certainly did not disappear during the European witchcraze.

The Shapeshifters
A common theme in witch trial witness testimony was that of a strange cat which would enter a household at night to attack babies or smother sleepers. This theme was reinforced by confessions of witches. Some claimed to be able to shapeshift into the form of cats in order to reach their victims.

In 1427, a woman claimed to have murdered thirty children by sucking their blood. She confessed to Bernardino of Sienna of having anointed herself, and although appearing unchanged to others, of believing herself to have transformed into a cat.

According to The Fawne, by John Marston (c. 1575-1634), "A hag whose lies shoot poison--that has become an ould witch, and is now turning into a gib-cat" (Wedeck 160). (A gib-cat is a neutered male cat.)
In the seventeenth century, Isobel Gowdie revealed the formulae by which she turned herself into a black cat and back into a woman again.

The Devil as a Cat

Much folklore surrounds cats. Presumably because a cat is thought to have nine lives, witches were able to assume the shape of a cat nine times. Broth made from black cats will theoretically cure consumption. However, black cats were thought to be the Devil himself, and on Easter and Shrove Tuesday during the middle ages, black cats were routinely hunted down and burned. Cats accused of being witchs' familars were generally burned alive (Guiley 1989 53).

Cats as Familiars

By the mid- to late 1500s, cats had emerged as classic familiars. Since familiars often acted as a cipher for a witch's own anger and desires, the explicit sexual nature of a cat tied in well with the sexual desires of a witch. In 1566, during one of the very first English witch trials, Elizabeth Francis of Hatfield Peverel admitted her grandmother had counselled her to renounce God and His word, and to give of her blood to Satan (as she termed it) which to delivered [to] her in the likeness of a white spotted cat. Also she taught her to call it by the name of Satan, and to keep it in a basket.

Cats in Spell-Casting

Occasionally, cats were thought to have been used as sacrificial victims in the casting of spells. In 1590-1591, John Fian and his coven were accused of trying to drown Queen Anne and her husband King James on their ocean voyage to Denmark. Apparently, the witches christened a cat, tied it to a chopped-up human body, and threw the bundle into the ocean while reciting incantations. A huge storm arose and the royal ship was forced to return to Scotland.

In other folklore, if a cat jumps over a dead body, the corpse will become a vampire. To stop this, the cat has to be killed.

Answer 8

Those people are cruel losers who need to be locked up in a mental institution.

Answer 9

Because people are just plain stupid, nuts or whatever...i don't know really I can't stand anyone who mistreats animals! That makes them horrible people in my book. No one i would ever trust for sure.

Answer 10

Superstitions, I imagine