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rfmcdonaldOne of my first reactions to James McGirk's 3 Quarks Daily essay on the apparent national popularity of the Maine Coon in the United States was nationalist envy. "Why can't Canada develop a national cat breed?"
One myth claims that Maine Coons are a hybrid of descendants of Marie Antoinette's half-dozen Turkish Angoras, successful escapees of the metropole and later mating with the mongrels of Maine. Another claims that a sea captain/cat hoarder named Coon managed to use his ship to engage in the captive breeding of Angoras and Persians. A third claims that Maine Coons are descended in part from Norwegian forest cats brought by the Vikings to Vinland in the 11th century. Americans, McGirk suggest, like the idea of being democrats but also descendants of noted pedigrees from the old country but also pragmatically useful and passionate savages. But, he claims, one more element is needed for the Maine Coon to emerge victorious.
What would a Canadian cat breed mythology be like, I wonder?
“The most masculine of cats,” tout defenders of the breed, and they are indeed rugged, solid creatures who look as if they ought to be de-mousing a lighthouse on the stormy coast of Maine rather than sprawling on the settee. That is, after all, what they were probably bred for. Picture a cat, a large one, with tufted ears and a lumbering gait and a cheerful disposition; a coat with an undercoat of insulation, and oversized paws fit for trampling snow or scurrying up a tree trunk. Drooping whiskers, a propensity to sprout extra toes on his feet, an unusually expressive tail, and a dour, owlish expression that is almost a pout complete the Maine Coon, a creature on the cusp of entering America’s national pantheon of icons.
The Maine Coon is fast approaching the status of charismatic megafauna like orcas and eagles and howling white wolves. No other breed of cat has starred in so many viral videos, has inspired so many airbrushed t-shirts or so many wretched – and even a few not-so-wretched – tchotchkes as the Maine Coon. A search for “Maine Coon” returns 56.4 million search results, while its longhaired cousin the Persian returns only 8.1 million and the Abyssinian returns a mere 3.4 million. The Coon’s combination of rugged looks and an undeniably goofy disposition seem thoroughly plugged into that folksy vein of Americana that generated Paul Bunyan and his Blue Ox Babe. There is also an almost mystical air to the cat’s provenance.
No one really knows when the first Maine Coon came lumbering out of Maine’s timberlands to sprawl in front of wood stoves, though there are some pretty compelling creation myths floating around on the internet. For the cat to truly become part of America’s enduring iconography of log cabins and cowboys and ironclads and the Stars and Stripes, however, one of these peculiar stories will have to stick. Which one will it be?
One myth claims that Maine Coons are a hybrid of descendants of Marie Antoinette's half-dozen Turkish Angoras, successful escapees of the metropole and later mating with the mongrels of Maine. Another claims that a sea captain/cat hoarder named Coon managed to use his ship to engage in the captive breeding of Angoras and Persians. A third claims that Maine Coons are descended in part from Norwegian forest cats brought by the Vikings to Vinland in the 11th century. Americans, McGirk suggest, like the idea of being democrats but also descendants of noted pedigrees from the old country but also pragmatically useful and passionate savages. But, he claims, one more element is needed for the Maine Coon to emerge victorious.
There seems to be something missing from this mélange of stories, however, with one more component these three slivers of story might all snap together and form a credible, lasting creation myth for this all-American cat. Nearly every settler and migrant to the United States of America has come looking for opportunity or fleeing horrific persecution (or often both), so perhaps what the Maine Coon needs to truly nestle into the American collective unconsciousness is a persecution story (a purrsecution story, perhaps). But looking at the cuddly specimen curled up beneath my desk lamp beside me, such a thing is too horrible to contemplate. Maybe since everyone else has a nasty story lurking in his or her past, the Maine Coon will find his way into America’s heart without one.
What would a Canadian cat breed mythology be like, I wonder?
