Les chats et leur culture

by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

È ormai indubbio che Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (autrice della "Vita segreta dei cani") possieda un istinto pressoché infallibile per capire gli animali e il loro comportamento. Così, dopo quell'arguta e affettuosa indagine sui cani, la Thomas ha deciso di studiare i gatti, la famiglia dei felini in genere e la loro "cultura". E il risultato è questo libro in cui si fondono straordinaria capacità di osservazione, limpido stile divulgativo e incondizionato amore per tutti i personaggi della "tribù della tigre".

Genres: Nonfiction, Animals, Cats, Science, Nature, Reference, History

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas is the author of The Harmless People, a non fiction work about the Kung Bushmen of southwestern Africa, and of Reindeer Moon, a novel about the paleolithic hunter gatherers of Siberia, both of which were tremendous international successes. She lives in New Hampshire.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is tremendously interesting about this book is the viewpoint it is written from. Generally anthropological books and documentaries are the work of men and reflect a male point of view in everything. However, since we never see another side we accept that this is an 'objective' look at the species in question.

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, daughter of anthropologists herself and therefore schooled in the scientific method from birth (her upbringing was generally with whomever her parents were studying) sees things in a different light. Just to give one example. Lions. We all are taught that male lions are great big fearsome creatures who when they find a pride of lionesses that they like the look of, they just move on in, fighting the dominant male (if there is one) until he runs off and the sisters just accept they have a new master.

Does this really make sense? Lionesses, three or four sisters hunting together, couldn't bring down a single male if they didn't like the look of him? Of course they could and do. What appeals to lionesses in lions seems to be primarily two things.

One he should be very good in bed as lionesses like a lot of extended sex and are multi-orgasmic. They do not like quickies and tend to turn their heads and bite the lion's neck if he is not performing to their satisfaction. They allow him 'off the job' for a refreshing drink of water, but that's it, until they've had enough.

Secondly, he must be an extremely good babysitter. That's his job in life. Male lions babysit. They are portrayed as lazy creatures who have no need to work at hunting as the females do that and bring back the kill for him to feast first. And so they do. But he is home babysitting, protecting the little ones from all predators and harm.

If he's good at babysitting and a great stud, he stays. Otherwise, the lionesses can happily do without a lion until one turns up they rather fancy.

One thing that is very disturbing though but only to my human nature, not to lion nature, is that when a lion is accepted by the females into a pride, he kills (and eats) the cubs not sired by him.

It's a brilliant book. I read it many years ago but. like all Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's books, her profound insights remain fresh with me and cause me to question the overwhelmingly patriarchal David Attenborough wildlife documentaries and some of the ethological books I read.

On the island I live on, farming is considered letting the animals loose and they all live lovely lives wandering around doing as they please and eating your garden (unless you fence it off and have a cattle grid), it's all very organic. The generally held view is that bulls are dominant and dangerous and cows aren't. It is exactly the opposite. Bulls are only dangerous if they kept alone. Even in a bull ring they have to be stuck with knives on the end of spears to goad them, otherwise they'd probably just stand there.

Bulls are family men. They do like to be the herd. Keep them alone and they get upset. Young bulls will always run from people (at least here), they are very sweet but cowardly. Cows rarely run, and if you have a dog with you and they have calves they are threatening and dangerous. One or two cows together in your garden you can get to move off. More than that, even if there are bulls in the pack and they just sit down, chewing grass and staring insolently. They know there is nothing you can do, there are too many of them.

I once saw a bull and cow in love. The cow, was the leader of the herd (it is always a cow) and they used to stand very close to each other and rub their flanks together, they were never separated. I used to drive past them every day taking my son to school and saw them most weeks for years.

Love didn't just start with people, nor is it something a pet animal feels just for people or it's young, it's come down to us as being part of a couple, something evolutionary. It's a nice thought that. A long chain of love stretching back to... I wonder in which creatures it started?

[Peter Tillman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must-read for cat lovers. Cats as ranchers. The lions in Botswana! She's a great writer, and this is a great book.

For an actual review, see Athena's: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

And for fun, see PetraX's: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Athena · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's about time for me to reread this. Review below originally pub'd on Amazon in 1999:

This is a book that anyone interested in natural history and/or animal behavior ought to read. The author has a poet's command of the English language combined with a thorough understanding of the methodologies of the social and natural sciences. Her (radical?) contention that animals, particularly cats, have culture - a series of learned and transmissible behaviors - is demonstrated to the point where it should at least be taken seriously by the scientific community, and perhaps to the point of being as proven as possible outside the established boundaries of scientific methodology. Her observations of the interactions of the Serengeti populations over time, both lions and people, have certainly convinced me that animals have culture. And at the same time they've broken my heart just a little bit more at what we humans are doing to one another and to the other species that share this world.

I have read this book at least four times, cover to cover, and smiled and wept a little and been further enlightened during each read. I've bought it as a gift for several friends and have two or three copies of my own at home. A reviewer said of this work: "Wonderful book. Formidable woman.", and that pretty well sums it up - her voice is quiet, but I believe you will find it resonating with you for a very long time indeed.

In its own small way, "The Tribe of Tiger" is every bit as much of a classic as "Origin of the Species" or "Silent Spring" (or "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats"!).

[Kris Sellgren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an utterly fascinating book about lions, an okay book about tigers and pumas, and a mediocre book about house cats. The author spent some of her childhood living with Bushmen (her parents were anthropologists), and learned their stories of encounters with lions. She came back decades later, after the Bushmen territory had been overrun by farmers, and talks about how human-lion encounters have changed. The lion stories are really terrific. There are less detailed chapters about tigers (she concludes that tigers are happier in circuses than in zoos because they form relationships with their trainers and are not bored) and pumas. Her opening material, on house cats, is the weakest, being mainly anecdotes about her friends’ cats. They are cute cat stories, but don’t have the detailed observations of her other material.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was not what I expected. I'd read The Hidden Life of Dogs but knew nothing else about the author. I expected a light, quick read, but this book is much more. The earlier parts about the history, anatomy, and types of cats didn't excite me, but I did learn a lot. And then, who knew? The author is a well-known anthropologist. She spent much of her youth in Africa, with at least one visit decades later. She was there in the 1950s, when people had not encroached much on the wilderness. She knew some of the indigenous hunter-gatherers while they still lived in their traditional manner. And she got to see the cultures of different wild cats.

That's one of the premises of the book: cats are social animals, even though some types and individuals may appear to be solitary. They have cultures that change over time to adapt to changes in circumstances. She illustrates those changes with observations over several generations of both African lions and her own housecats. It was also interesting to read about the other cats the author has met and learned about, including the tame puma and the circus tigers.

Possibly the most important part of the book is the author's personal experiences of what human population growth and "civilization" did to the Kalahari and other areas in Africa. It wiped out an ecosystem of plants, animals, and humans that had been stable for tens of thousands of years. Heartbreaking.

[Cynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Naturalist Elizabeth Marshall Thomas has lived during interesting times. Cats have culture and have interspecies relationships with humans. Modern-living humans have populated the the area that belonged to the people (Bushmen) of the Old Ways where humans and big cats had an ancient negotiated relationship. Now people and cats have developed New Ways that serve neither humans or cats. As a naturalist Thomas has named the problem. What are we--the rest of us--to do about a multi-faceted problem based on increasing human populations and dwindling natural resources?

Read for Earth Day/Month 2019

[Fen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm not sure how to tag this one, since I haven't read it all... I finally decided it wasn't worth taking the time to try to finish it. The book started out pretty well, but it seems like the author couldn't quite make up her mind whether she wanted to write a scientifically based overview of the influence of evolution on the behavior of cats or just showcase her own anecdotal stories of cat behavior.

Obviously, the two could easily go hand in hand, but her "science" often ended up simply being references to her own private correspondence certain scientists with whom she happened to agree. And even then, it could be forgivable, if the stories she told had been interesting, but they quickly became quite repetitive and, well, boring... and life is way too short to read boring books.

[Chrissy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. The author is incredibly informative and explains cat behavior along with history of cats in an easy to understand way. She includes small stories on the side of her personal interactions with cats large and small.

Fellow crazy cat ladies of the world, I implore you to read this lovely book.

[Kaethe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, crazy cat lady does love to read about the cats, both big and small. Thomas writes well, and engagingly.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read much of this book with my two pampered felines curled next to me, which is the best way to experience it (and many things in life), in my opinion. I loved the author's well-rendered anecdotes about the cats in her life, from housecats to pumas to lions. I would have liked to have heard more about domestic cats, but I did enjoy comparing my little lions to the much bigger ones Thomas described. The book was not purely scientific - Thomas made a lot of assumptions and guesses about why cats behave the way they do, but over the course of the book, I came to trust her judgment and enjoy her unusual perspective. I also like that her anger at people who hunt big cats for sport spilled out so unrestrainedly where appropriate. If I have the chance to read her book about dogs, I think I will definitely give it a try.

["KayFey" · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been an animal lover most of my life and have a fondness for cats. When I read "The Tribe of Tiger", this intellectual treatise and scholarly research on an animal we take for granted, it opened my eyes and mind to the possibilities of what I wanted to be able to write. I am a huge fan of Dr. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas' body of work and admire her many years of anthropological study often involving indigenous people in the African countries. I have a particular fondness for her books and her scholarly respect towards the animal world and am happy that she continues this.

[Barbara (The Bibliophage) · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's been years since I read this, but I remember finding it fascinating. Our domestic cats aren't that far removed from the big cats.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elizabeth Thomas acute observations of felines of every size and stripe adds much to our knowledge of feline behavior. A must for any serious cat lover who wants to better understand how cats think.

Ms. Thomas received a great deal of criticism for this book from professional animal behaviorists since her lifetime of observations and interactions with cats large and small as an anthropologist were not credited as valuable.

However, as a vet tech and cat consultant I found her ideas corresponded with my own observations, especially in cat colonies and maternal interactions with kittens. Ideas and explanations, I might add, that were missing in the peer reviewed material at the time.

It doesn't hurt either that the book is in narrative form and her experiences and observations are both fascinating and downright surprising. For example, her discussion of the interactions between different African tribes and their resident prides.

[Terri Galloway · Rating 2 out of 5]

The two stars is a personal opinion because I was expecting something else. The cover has house cats on the front but the majority of the book is about lions in Africa where the author worked as an anthropologist and pumas returning to parts of the U.S.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this, and also her book on dogs. Highly recommend

[Leah Wohl-Pollack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thomas does a great job of synthesizing her personal experiences as a field anthropologist and cat owner with historical information gathered from various obscure but nevertheless educational sources. I do feel I have a better sense of the culture of my own house cats and how they behave as extensions of their wild ancestors. Her recollections of her work in Africa with hunter-gatherer communities and her interactions with wild lions and tigers put me even more in awe of large wild cats. It saddened me to read about how the old ways of life of the African bushmen have been lost, and how the development of farming and cattle raising has been detrimental to the survival of populations of wild cats.

Thomas seems to rely a lot on asking rhetorical questions as lead-ins to topics, and she tends to repeat herself a lot, which can be tiring. Her division of the book into three sections ("The Animal," "The Old Ways," and "New Way") was somewhat arbitrary as many of the themes she discusses fall under more than one of the three categories, and Thomas is not strict about keeping her information organized into these groups. Still, I would recommend this book to anyone who loves house cats and wants to learn about their culture as it relates to the ancient ways of large cats in the wild. Thomas may not be the most phenomenal writer, but she is definitely a cat scholar if there is such a thing.

[LibraryCin · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars

This book looks at cat behavior, including big and small cats. There is also an extensive section on lions and their culture. There are a lot of anecdotes included in the book.

I quite liked this. Found it interesting, and there were some very nice illustrations. One thing that bothered me was her referring to mates as “husbands” and “wives”, though.

[Dmitri Poletaev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Required reading for every cat owner.

That's an amazing book. The accomplishments of the author in her lifelong studies of the animals behaviors are astounding. I really think that the every cat owner have to read this book. It will not only will make him or her to understand better the characters of their pets it will immensely broaden their horizons...

[Kevin Carson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining read for anyone who loves cats and wants to know more about why they do the things they do. This book is essentially a collection of anecdotes with little or no logical structure, so you can keep it next to the toilet and read random passages with no loss of meaning.

[ryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

stirring, disturbing, saddening, heartening, felinear and fine-grained.

[Deborah Pickstone · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was most entertained and charmed - this well-written and interesting look at cats and their cultures was a winner all round. I learned a lot! And I live with cats.

[Jack · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh, brother…

Much of this book is less science-based and more just the author waxing poetic about personal experiences she’s had with cats. The actual information is very sparse, and the bulk of the book’s content is centered more on the author coming to conclusions based on personal observations from an anthro-centric POV.

It’s a book from 1994, so of course the cited information that’s there is pretty outdated. Nevermind how frustrating it is to read about someone who talks about all of the wildlife her outdoor cats kill with a kind of sadistic glee. She even mentions how one of her cats was killed by a coyote, but god forbid she takes on any personal accountability for the consequence of letting her animals outside.

Even more baffling is a section near the end where she makes the audacious argument that tigers used in circuses have better welfare than tigers in accredited zoos. Like????

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Old. Mostly anecdotal. No notes. Science seems fine, but it just isn't really a valid science book anymore, sorry.

That being said, everything that Thomas reports is believable, and all her interpretations & speculations are plausible.

And fascinating. There are basically three sections, housecats, lions of the Kalahari, and tigers. I could have used dozens of bookdarts in all three sections. Instead, I'll just tease you with just one:

" ...we have been conditioned to believe that if we have seen one group of elephants, say, or lions, we have seen them all, so we don't even search among wild populations for cultural differences. But in fact, many if not most kinds of animals have culture just as we do, often very easily observed."

3.5 stars rounded down because I hope we've better, newer information nowadays.

[Kat V · Rating 3 out of 5]

More scientific than I anticipated, but in a good way. Alright we’re getting a little off track now. This isn’t a great book but if you’re on the fence I’d still recommend reading it. Good for lighthearted nonfiction but I’m still not sure what the overall theme was. 3.2 stars

[Shawn Thrasher · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a science book, the publication date is ancient history - I'm sure "felinologists" (if that's a thing) have discovered plenty of new and exciting info about cats. But I still found this fascinating. I have three dogs and two cats, and in my heart of hearts, cats rule and dogs drool (even if I do love them all equally). Marshall explores the entire world of cats - both big and small; her chapters on lions in Africa (whose habitats have likely changed immensely, and sadly, since this book was written) and tigers in circuses are truly catnip for a knowledge lover (see what I did there?). The entire book is terrific.

[Melle · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an interesting little volume about cat social behaviors across the feline family spectrum, but I found a lot of this book to be unsatisfactory to what I was hoping to read. I was hoping for a well-research, well-documented book with less anecdotal information, a less anthropomorphic perspective, and with a little more professional, ethical judgement. The author observes and examines the social behaviors of her own housecats, but she is coming from the perspective of an anthropologist in how she observes and interprets. It's an interesting perspective, but it's also not necessarily the perspective of a feline behaviorist or a feline evolutionary biologist. I was really disappointed in the reliance of information gleaned by people keeping big cats as pets or trained animals; I am aware I have a personal bias in that I believe wild animals should be kept in a habitat with routines most closely resembling their natural ones if and when possible, but it also seems irresponsible and awfully presumptuous to assume one knows so much about feline behavior that one forgets or dismisses or disregards the possibility that nature will trump nurture. Cats, from housecats to feral cats to cougars to tigers, have a special interspecies relationship with human beings. Our actions affect their lives, their habitats; however, I think it's disingenuous and presumptuous to claim a book like this, with its lack of in-depth research and its reliance on anecdotal information, can accurately inform us about feline social behaviors across the board from housecat to tiger beyond loosely-concluded hypotheses.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about the culture of cats--big cats as well as house cats, wild cats as well as domesticated cats. The author, who is an anthropologist and has also written books about dog and deer behavior, has many fascinating stories to tell about the behavior of house cats, lions and tigers in the wild and captivity, and American pumas. The book meanders a bit--it doesn't progress toward a central argument so much as give many examples of cats teaching/learning culture from different types of cat life.

This is NOT a cute book of cat stories, though. I had to take a break from it for a few weeks because I found it too hard to read about dwindling wild cat populations, unwanted tigers being sold to people who provide "game" for hunters to shoot, zoos euthanizing tigers after they've passed their breeding age, and so forth. These depressing topics were discussed in a matter of fact way, but I was not in a frame of mind to be able to deal with them one after the other, page after page.

I was surprised by Thomas's argument for why the life of a circus tiger was better than that of a zoo tiger--especially since I have recently received a rash of emails from an animal rights group which wants me to oppose animal circuses in my city. Also, her description of the time she spent in the Kalahari with a community of bushmen, observing, among other things, their relationship with the lion population there, was very beautiful. I recommend this book, but approach with care if you are sensitive.

[George Ilsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting in places. Covers wild cats in Africa as well as house cats. Thomas does have some empathy blind spots. Her love for nature seems at times to start and stop with cats. When describing the hunting habits of her house cats, she mentions all the prey they bring into the house — mice, voles, chipmunks, bats, birds, snakes (which are then discarded); however, there is no hint of concern for the wildlife which is being indiscriminately slaughtered by her pets. On the other hand, she is concerned that coyotes might eat her cats!

So in places this work does feel dated, because the topic of house cats as relentless (and subsidized) little killers, although still highly divisive, is now often raised.

Some of her points seem silly to me. Large cats sprawl and small cats curl up? To me, that seems like a temperature thing — small cats sprawl too when they are warm and relaxed.

All in all, cats cat cats. Cannot go wrong with cats.

[Kathy Roaleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book!

I am the proud parent of 4 wonderful cats and 1 dog with a very sweet Soul. I thoroughly enjoyed The Tribe of Tiger. I've read many books on cat behavior, but none was nearly as informative as this one. Ms Thomas is an astute observer of animals and has done a remarkable amount of research for this book. The result is a very readable format which made it difficult to put the book down. I've discussed this book with several members of my family and friends despite reading the book in a short 3 days. Fascinating prose and a very pragmatic delivery of scientific information. I dearly love the felines with whom I share my home, and I now have an even greater appreciation of the intelligence, character and culture that they display. I'd recommend this book to anyone who has any curiosity about feline (and human) behavior.

[Betsy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't finish this book. It was not what I was expecting. It seems to be more about big cats than housecats. Also writing is somewhat scattered; doesn't seem to follow a progression that made sense to me. And when she started talking about how and why lions in Africa declined, it got too depressing for me.