Why black cats are linked to Halloween: not their fault, just centuries of misunderstanding

When Halloween comes, you can see it almost everywhere: a black cat silhouette with an arched back and glowing green eyes, reclining on a crescent moon or crouching beside a witch's pumpkin; like witches, ghosts, and pumpkins, it has become an essential part of Halloween

But have you ever wondered why it has to be a black cat? Dogs can be black too, so why isn't a black dog silhouette hanging on the wall for Halloween?

You might feel a little sorry for cats when you hear this — being tied to Halloween is not the black cat's own fault at all, but the result of centuries of accumulated misunderstanding; today, let's sort out this account piece by piece

The foundation: cats and the supernatural have a long-standing connection

First, consider the cat species itself, which naturally has the look of being connected to another world

Cats are nocturnal animals, sleeping during the day and staying energetic at night; in the era before streetlights, creatures active at night naturally carried an air of mystery; add to that the cat's eyes — they reflect light in the dark and glow softly, and when they stare at you, anyone would feel a shiver

Moreover, cats are especially independent; dogs cling to people and follow commands, but cats don't; they come and go as they please, rubbing against you when they're cold and doing whatever they want the rest of the time; this quality of being unpredictable and uncontrollable naturally led the ancients to associate them with the mysterious, the uncanny, and the uncontrollable

So cats' association with the supernatural dates back very early — the ancient Egyptians even worshipped cats as gods; this foundation of the cat's innate mystery is the groundwork for all the misunderstandings that came later

The Middle Ages: black cats became the witch's cat

What really sealed the bond between black cats and evil was medieval Europe

During that period, Europe was swept up in witch hunts — the church and the public frantically hunted down and put on trial those believed to be associated with the devil, and black cats were inexplicably dragged into the whole affair

The most typical example is a papal decree issued by Pope Gregory IX in 1233, called Vox in Rama; in the decree, black cats were linked to the devil — in the eyes of people at that time, black cats were seen as one of the devil's incarnations

Folklore added even more embellishment: it was said that witches could turn into black cats and roam around at night; black cats were said to be the witch's familiar — a magical assistant that helped the witch cast spells and deliver messages; in some stories, the devil would even send black cats to witches as servants

And so it was that an ordinary little black cat was forced to bear the heavy label of being the witch's cat and the devil's accomplice; for centuries in the Middle Ages, cats were burned and executed because of these claims, a tragedy that really happened — later research even suggested that the mass killing of cats at that time indirectly led to the loss of control over rats during the Black Death; in this misunderstanding, cats truly took the blame for humans

Why does it have to be black?

You might also be wondering: why not a calico cat, not an orange tabby, but a black cat?

This is where the weight of black in culture comes in. Black is naturally bound up with night, darkness, the unknown and death. What did ancient people fear most at night? The dark. A black cat is black all over and moves around at night, so it was almost like darkness itself grew eyes and came running

On top of that, a black cat is almost invisible in the dark and all you can see are those two reflective eyes —— a pair of faint eyes drifting toward you out of the darkness —— and in that superstitious era, that image was terrifying beyond measure. So when people needed an animal tinged with evil, the black cat became the handiest target

 The superstition about crossing your path: it is different from place to place

Because of this history, Europe, especially Western Europe, built up a set of superstitions about black cats —— the most famous one being that a black cat crossing in front of you brings bad luck

This superstition spread widely, and many people who see a black cat cross the road instinctively take a detour, spit, or knock on wood three times

What is interesting, though, is that this superstition is not universal. In places like Britain, Ireland and Japan, black cats are instead a symbol of good luck —— an old British saying holds that a black cat walking into your house is a good omen, and Japan treats black cats as lucky mascots too, including the black ones among the beckoning lucky cats. Same black cat, wildly different treatment depending on where you are

This shows precisely that the bad luck of black cats is not something they carry within themselves, but a prejudice of one place and one era that other cultures simply do not share

How it connects to Halloween

So how did black cats get tied to Halloween?

The holiday itself comes from the Celtic supernatural festival Samhain —— a day when people believed the dead returned and the boundary with the other world grew thin. Dealing with the other world is the underlying tone of Halloween

Witches, ghosts and the witch cat are all figures with a foot in the other world. So as Halloween gradually turned into a supernatural grab bag, with witches arriving, ghosts arriving and pumpkins arriving, the black cat at the witch side naturally came along too

So the black cat became a fixed symbol of Halloween: the arched-back black cat silhouette on decoration, kids in black cat onesies as part of their costume, the painted cat curled up next to the witch —— and just like that it became one of the most deeply ingrained animal images of Halloween

The modern side: a story from the shelters

Because the superstition that black cats are unlucky runs so deep, modern times have produced a very practical phenomenon: around Halloween, many animal shelters pause black cat adoptions

Why? Because some people are drawn to black cats for being mysterious and fitting the season, so they go and pick one up on Halloween day and take it home as a Halloween prop —— then want rid of it once the holiday is over, or never intended to care for it properly in the first place. To protect these cats, shelters simply stop adopting them out around Halloween and reopen once the holiday has passed

Put simply, this phenomenon itself is just another modern-day version of the black cat misunderstanding — shelters are not fond of black cats being disliked, on the contrary, they simply do not want black cats to be treated as a seasonal decoration again

One last thing

So the black cat being tied to Halloween is, in the end, a misunderstanding, and one that has lasted for several hundred years

There is nothing mysterious about it, it is just an ordinary cat that is active at night, has eyes that reflect light and is black from head to tail, and it happened to run into that era when people were superstitious about black meaning evil, and also happened to land on Halloween, a supernatural holiday, so it got pushed into this position

Next time you see a black cat silhouette on the wall at Halloween, try looking at it from a different angle — arching its back adorably and staring with a pair of green eyes, it is actually clearing the name of the cats of hundreds of years ago: it is no witch's accomplice, it is just a little cat that happens to be all black and is especially, especially mysterious — Halloween needs it not because of darkness, but because it is cool enough