Festival of the Cats

While trolling for interesting news stories, I happened to find a reference to Kattenstoet,  “festival of the cats,” which is held triennually on the second Sunday of May in Ypres, Belgium. The last festival was celebrated in 2012.

I was drawn to the festival by the photo above featuring a giant cat / woman that would put the Macy’s parade balloons to shame. She was led around the town, over the uneven cobblestone streets, by a band of mice / children.  Her size, as she dwarfed the old buildings along the parade route, gave her the perfect vantage point for peeking into even highest second floor window.

One of the many curious elements of the festival is that it only occurs once every three years. A Belgian website dedicated to the event provided more insight into the festival. There have been 43 festivals held to-date with the first occurring in 1955. The festival includes floats, giants, bands, theatre, and dance groups. It is said to feature“evocations of the cat throughout history, the cat in language and legend, the cat around the world.” And, it is the only festival of its kind that I can find reference to on the internet.

Lacking details, I turned to Patrick Robert’s blog Purr ‘n’ Fur more pictures and complete history of the festival.  Ypres was said to have a booming wool trade, with the wool stored in a town building called Cloth Hall. Cats were used to keep rodents away from the wool, until it could be sold. When spring came and the cats were no longer needed, they were thrown off the tower by the town jester. The town was said to end this inhumane practice in 1817, and now holds the festival to celebrate the cats and their history.  

I was surprised to learn that the large white female cat in the parade is named Minneke Poes. She was married to Cieper, “King of the Cats” (black cat below), in 1971. They have a “baby Pieperke” born in 1983, who does not regularly appear in the parades. Apparently the festival is continuing to create its own lore and history to grow the tale of the cats.

Reading about this cat festival made me wonder if was unusual, or if there were more cat festivals throughout the world that I was missing out on. A brief search of the internet produced two recently developed festivals dedicated to cat videos in Oakland and Minneapolis. Fresh Step cat litter also sponsors the “Catdance” film festival annually. I was excited to find out about the C.A.T.S festival in San Antonio, Texas, until I learned that the acronym stood for Cigar Aficionados Trades and Sale.

Finding my search fairly fruitless, I returning to the Purr ‘n’ Fur blog and found more creative cat-options. In Catskill, New York, the Cat’n Around exhibition features larger-than-life decorated cat busts throughout town. There is also a “The Moon Cat” in the town of Lloret de Mar, a writing contest sponsored by the international Cat Writer’ Association, and a cat collector’s convention held annual in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Given my folklore interest in Oscar, the therapy cat who predicted deaths in nursing homes with uncanny accuracy, maybe some additional research in this topic is merited at a later date. I’ll be sure to mark date 10 May 2015 of the next festival of cats in Belgium on my calendar today.