Open AccessWhy do first kittens end up down the drain?: An iconic meaning of the lexema cat and litter II
Author(s) -
Basic Ivana
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
glasnik etnografskog instituta/glasnik etnografskog instituta sanu
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2334-8259
pISSN - 0350-0861
DOI - 10.2298/gei1002128b
Subject(s) - serbian , magic (telescope) , meaning (existential) , folklore , litter , slavic languages , verb , etymology , art , history , linguistics , psychology , literature , philosophy , biology , ecology , physics , quantum mechanics , psychotherapist
In the Slavic folklore, a cat and similar other small animals with soft fur and numerous litters/offspring, represent symbols of a young female, bride, woman, female genitals, home and hearth, appearing thus in fertility rituals, connected with food, knitting, weaving, and magic, but they are also associated with female demons, such as „devour-eaters“, „child and harvest stealers“. All these are the characteristics of the Great Mother Goddess, in her terrifying, chthonic appearance. This paper points out to a possibility that the lexema cat [mačka in Serbian language] originated from the basis of mat- (in Serbian language: mati, majka, in English language: mom, mother): the motivation basis for the both expression/ word for cat/litter (in Serbian language: mačka/kot) could be connected with a representation of female genitals (womb, in Sebian language: materica), birthing, understood here as “expulsion”, and “unfold” of the large number of offspring. Actually, those are the meanings of the ver