It is possible that Nyx has no say in who becomes a vampyre, or perhaps with the aid of biology Nyx selects certain humans and sets them on a path to become her children. Either way, the tattoos seal the relationship between goddess and acolyte. Zoey’s more elaborate tattoos are evidence of her special relationship with the goddess; her tattoos are more than just a “this girl has potential” stamp of approval. From a metaphysical perspective, Zoey’s Marks are a physical road map of her journey along Nyx’s path as she grows into her role as High Priestess.
STATEMENTS OF INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY
Within the House of Night books, adult vampyres’ Goddess-given Marks range from the mysterious to the elegant. High Priestess Neferet’s tattoos are described as cresting ocean waves, while those of Zoey’s fencing teacher (Professor Langford) favor the more dramatic approach: “His tattoo represented two dragons whose bodies, serpent-like, wrapped down over his jaw line. Their heads were over his brows and their mouths open, breathing fire at the crescent moon” (sounds amazing) (Marked). Other professors have thin Celtic knots and feathers or plunging horses. Not surprisingly, the latter belongs to the equestrian teacher, Professor Lenobia. Erik’s full tattoo is “a stunning pattern of interlocking knots that formed the shape of a mask,” signaling his love of acting (Chosen). In the world of the House of Night, Marks are unique to the individuals who wear them, clear reflections of their owners’ identities: their passions, personalities, and destinies.
This is often the case for tattoos in the real world, especially today. Tattoos are a chance for people to express their individuality and their interests: a favorite hobby, sports team, entertainer, or animal (cats anyone?). Pop culture, too, supplies ample inspiration for skin art. The Casts have encountered ardent fans of the House of Night who have acquired crescent tattoos in homage to the series. Numerous fans of Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter® books have adopted Artemis’ double bow and arrow symbol (as worn by the Dark-Hunters in the series) as part of their permanent epidermal wardrobe.
A NOTE ON PLACEMENT
We’ve talked a lot about the purpose of tattoos, but the placement often has special significance, as well. Fertility marks located on a woman’s lower abdomen or on her thighs might enhance her sexuality, while tattoos on a male’s chest and back signify prowess. Marks along the temple or the jaw might indicate a need for healing or, especially if highly visible, might serve as a warning of the wearer’s magical or physical abilities.
Tattoos, by their nature, can be put just about anywhere there is skin, though some parts of the body are more sensitive than others, making the process more painful. So why would countless cultures choose to mark their faces when there are plenty of other areas available? What drives the Maori in New Zealand, the aboriginal Kondhs of India, and the Inuit in the Arctic to put those tattoos in plain sight?
In part, it’s a human thing—we check out each other’s faces the moment we meet and make certain subjective assessments based on what we see. We determine, in a fraction of a second, if the newcomer is a potential friend or foe, a member of our own race or community, and what their expression might hold in store for us. We decide if that person is trustworthy based on what we “read” on his or her face. Tattoos help this process along. (For some North American Indian tribes, tattoos helped members differentiate between fellow warrior and foe during the heat of battle, thereby sparing a warrior the embarrassing realization that he had just speared one of his own guys.) When the tattoo is on the face, the identification process will be even quicker.
In the House of Night series, the crescent moon is front and center in the middle of the forehead, and is impossible to ignore unless obscured by makeup. But the Mark is also located at the Anja, the sixth chakra. This chakra (also referred to as the third eye) is symbolized by the colors violet, deep blue, or indigo, which are remarkably close to the sapphire blue of most vampyre tattoos. The Anja is considered the center of intuition, responsible for the evaluation of past experiences, clairvoyance, and the ability to separate fantasy from reality. The chakra’s aspect is self-realization, which is one of the fledglings’ primary goals at the House of Night (aside from survival). The profound changes occurring both inside the body and without require the fledgling to reassess everything he or she has held as truth and find new ways to interact with the world. I can’t imagine a more appropriate place for that tattoo.
WHY TATTOOS MATTER
In both our world and Zoey’s, tattoos tell a tale of courage and of pain endured. Marking our skin shows us to be part of a community, but also that we are a separate and unique person with particular interests and experiences. It gives a visual proclamation as to who we are and where and to whom we belong.
No matter the reason for acquiring a tattoo, when it is placed on our flesh, it changes us. It is a visceral and visual acknowledgement that “this is my body and I choose it to be beautiful, but according to my rules.” As we wait to see what Zoey’s future holds in store, we can rest assured that as she discovers more about herself and her destiny, her Marks will continue to be a compelling and meaningful part of that journey.
JANA OLIVER has the perfect job—she listens to the voices in her head and then writes their stories. Her latest creation is the young adult Demon Trappers series (St. Martin’s Press) set in a dystopian 2018 Atlanta and populated by Hellspawn, Deaders, and scheming necromancers.
JANA’S FORAY into time travel and alternate history resulted in the multi-award winning Time Rovers series (Dragon Moon Press). Based in 1888 London, the series deftly blends time travel, shape-shifters, and Jack the Ripper. Visitors are always welcome at her website: www.JanaOliver.com.
{ The Divine Cat }
Ellen Steiber
I MIGHT as well admit my prejudice up front: I’ve been crazy about cats for as long as I can remember, and I’ve been lucky enough to live with them for most of my life. So one of the things that immediately drew me into the House of Night series was the cats. Cats everywhere, roaming freely, and always welcome in the dorms, cafeteria, stables, and even the classrooms—basically my idea of the perfect school. Then I was completely charmed by Nala, the sneezey, often grumpy, little cat who chooses Zoey for her own. P.C. and Kristin Cast clearly know and love their cats, and it’s a delight to see how they use them in these books. Not only do they create very real felines—sweet, moody, comforting, and impossible to predict or control—but they make creative use of some of the mythic and mystical lore that has been part of feline history for the last 5,000 years. Though the House of Night cats are not, on their own, magical in the traditional sense, they draw on a rich history of cat mythology and folklore.
Leonardo da Vinci once wrote, “The smallest feline is a masterpiece.” Cats are incredibly well-designed, beautiful little predators who can live with or without us. With their lithe, muscular bodies, they’re capable of leaping, running, climbing to great heights, and moving almost silently. Compared to humans, they have heightened senses of smell, hearing, vision, and balance. They can sense seismic vibrations long before we do, and they sense magnetic and meteorological changes far more keenly. They clearly know things that we don’t. When provoked or when courting, they are capable of making the most dreadful sounds; listening to one or more cats caterwauling can raise the hair on the back of your neck.
Although domestic cats are fairly small animals who live with us quite peaceably, they’re not all that far removed from their larger cousins, the wild cats. Much like vampyres, cats retain a fierce, savage nature beneath a civilized surface. As the writer Carl Van Vechten put it in the title of his book, the cat is The Tiger in the House. All felines, from house cats to lions, share the same basic body structure, the same supple movements, the same hunting instincts, and a wild, independent nature that never completely disappears no matter how long or closely they live with us.
They’re resilient creatures with a knack for survival that includes an uncanny ability to land on their feet, even when falling from grea
t heights, due to the cat’s agile spine and tail (the tail can whip around and turn the body so that the cat lands feetfirst). Cats have also been known to travel great distances to return to their homes, and to survive many natural disasters, contributing to the belief that cats have nine lives.
Naturally nocturnal, they’re wired to hunt at night. Although cats can’t see in complete darkness, their pupils change size and shape, allowing them to see with very little light. A layer of cells in the cat’s retina, the tapetum, collects and reflects light back into the eye, acting like a mirror and causing a strange effect called “eyeshine” in which the cat’s eyes seem to glow. These extraordinary feline eyes have fascinated and frightened humans for centuries, and we’ve attached many beliefs to this phenomenon: that cats are connected to the moon, which also waxes and wanes in size; that cats—lions in particular—are able to look at the setting sun and keep its light in their eyes; that cats can see the future or see into the spirit world; and that cats can see into our minds and thoughts.
That’s a lot of mystical power for one small creature. Perhaps because of that perceived power, stories about cats throughout history have had a dual nature. We’ve seen them as creatures of light and dark, friends and enemies, demons and saviors. Few people are neutral about cats even today. Humans seem to love them or hate them, and the hatred is almost always intertwined with fear. People fear dogs as well, but that fear is usually simple and physical: they’re afraid of being bitten. The fear of cats, though, seems to go beyond being bitten or scratched to an underlying belief that cats are aloof, devious, and somehow evil creatures who intend to do us harm.
The House of Night vampyres, of course, don’t fear cats. They see them as beloved companions and allies, a connection to their Goddess. In fact, the House of Night cats function a great deal like witches’ familiars. In order to understand cats as familiars—and to understand their ancient connection with magic and the supernatural—it helps to go back to an earlier historical belief about cats: that they were not just animals but gods.
THE CAT GODDESSES
“Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this.”
—Anonymous
Western cat lore seems to officially begin in Ancient Egypt, where for over two thousand years cats were worshipped. The Egyptians had several feline divinities. The most beloved was Bast (also known as Bastet and Pasht), a benevolent goddess who was considered a protector and a healer. Sekhmet was the bloodthirsty, lion-headed goddess of war and destruction. Tefnut, yet another lion-headed divinity, was a goddess of rain and mists who, like Sekhmet, was capable of turning herself into a devouring lion. Mafdet, who was worshipped in very early times, was not only a feline goddess of judicial authority, but a protector against snakes.
The Egyptians valued cats for reasons that were both practical and mystical. On a practical level, cats kept mice, rats, and even snakes out of homes and the storehouses where grain was kept. Cats were also considered magical creatures, primarily for their ability to see in the dark. The Egyptians feared darkness and believed that since cats’ eyes wax and wane like the moon, cats themselves were a kind of protection against the dark of night. Bast was considered a moon goddess, an enemy of darkness, who held the sun’s light in her eyes at night. Like the moon, cats were believed to have the power to control tides, weather, and the growth of crops. The Egyptians also believed that a cat’s eyes could see into the human mind and soul, and sometimes even predict whether or not someone who was sick would recover. The Egyptian word for cat, mau, meant “to see.”
How exactly did cats become gods? Scholars think the animals were first brought into Egypt by the Ethiopians. We know cats were being worshipped at least 5,000 years ago, because the earliest portrait of Bast was found in a temple built in the Fifth Dynasty, around 3000 b.c. Bast is usually portrayed either as a cat or with a woman’s body and a cat’s head. (There are also statues of her with a lion’s head, which are easily confused with statues of Sekhmet.) Bast usually wore a long dress and carried an aegis or shield, as well as a sistrum, which was a kind of rattle used in the worship of Isis.
A Cat Goddess in Florida?
A sixteenth-century wooden sculpture known as the Key Marco Cat was excavated on Florida’s Marco Island in 1895 by anthropologist Frank Hamilton Cushing. The six-inch-tall carving shows a slender kneeling human body with a cat’s head. The figure is leaning slightly forward, hands on knees, as if listening to a particularly interesting conversation. No one really knows who carved the Key Marco Cat or which culture it belonged to, but the best guess is that it’s connected with the Calusa, a Native American people who lived in Florida between the eighth and sixteenth centuries, and that the wooden figurine survived because it was buried in a bog. (Or perhaps it survived because cats have nine lives.) We also have no idea whether the Calusa regarded cats as gods or spirit protectors, but the figurine seems to be a kind of aesthetic kin to the statues of the Egyptian cat gods. The Key Marco Cat now resides in the Smithsonian Institution.
Bast was believed to be the daughter of two of the most powerful figures in the Egyptian pantheon: Isis, the goddess of motherhood, fertility, and magic, and her husband, Osirus, the sun god who ruled the Underworld and protected the souls of the dead. By 950 b.c., Bast was a goddess in her own right, with the combined powers of her divine parents. Like Isis, she was a goddess of fertility, sexuality, and magic identified with the moon. Like Osirus, she was a sun god and a protector of the dead. As a sun god, Bast was a symbol of life and light, of the warm rays of the sun that make crops grow. She was also a healer.
All cats were considered direct links to Bast, and thus sacred. A cat in the house was believed to bring the goddess’ divine favor and protection against misfortune. Household cats were treated with great respect, often allowed to eat from their masters’ plates. It was forbidden, under the penalty of death, to kill a cat even by accident. If a house cat died, the family went into mourning, shaving their eyebrows and beating their breasts at the funeral. Even the poor were expected to give their cats a proper burial. Temple cats, which were considered actual representations of the goddess, received the most elaborate funerals of all. Their bodies were mummified and placed in sarcophagi, usually with a bowl of milk. It was believed that the priests’ prayers kept these bowls filled in the afterlife.
The lion-headed goddess Sekhmet, whose name means the “Mighty One,” was also a solar god, but she represented fire and the scorching, devouring rays of the sun. Statues of Sekhmet show a female lion or a woman with a lion’s head, often crowned by a solar disk. A fiery glow was said to come from her body, and the hot, desert winds were her breath. Sekhmet came into the world with a dark purpose: to destroy the enemies of Ra. Ra, who was sometimes referred to as the “Great Cat,” was another sun god and king of all the Egyptian gods. It was said he created Sekhmet from the fire in his eye in order to punish humans who had sinned. A warrior goddess known as the “Crusher of Hearts,” Sekhmet spread terror and plagues and was one of the most bloodthirsty deities in any pantheon. When Ra initiated the Slaying of Mankind to punish humans who rebelled against him, Sekhmet killed so eagerly and savagely that even Ra, who had asked for her aid in the slaughter, saw that if she continued, humankind would be wiped out. He had to trick her in order to stop her—he got her drunk.
But that was hardly the end of Sekhmet’s influence. Her image appeared on temple doorways as a guardian of wisdom. In the millennia that followed she was worshipped as a deity of fate, associated with magic and sorcery. Because of her powers of sorcery, she was prayed to as a great healer, a goddess of childbirth, and a patron of bonesetters. Still, she never lost her taste for blood. Her favorite sacrifices were children.
Cat worship continued in Egypt until the time of the Romans. It was against the law to take cats out of Egypt, but Phoenician traders managed to smuggle them into Rome, where they became very popular for their ability to kill mice and rats. But as they becam
e more common throughout the ancient world, they were no longer considered quite so divine.
The Jaguar God
The Egyptians weren’t the only culture who held cats sacred. Tepeyollotl, worshipped by Mexico’s Aztec and Zapotec peoples as well as in Guatemala, was described as a monster jaguar who would leap out and seize the setting sun. His name meant “Heart of the Mountains” or the “Lord of the Mountains.” The jaguar, like Bast, was connected with vegetation and fertility.
Here’s the thing about gods and goddesses: they’re shape-shifters of a sort. They’ve been around for millennia, and over time, as populations have moved from place to place (by force or by choice), or as the needs of the culture changed, the gods have moved and changed, too. They’re given different names, but the “new” gods or goddesses often take on the powers of the old. One example of this is Bast taking on the powers of Isis and Osiris, as some scholars think Bast is just the feline form of Isis. Sekhmet, too, is believed by some to be just another aspect of Bast, her shadow or dark twin. Scholars believe that in ancient Greece, the cat goddess became known as Artemis, the moon goddess and hunter; and in Rome, she became Diana. Artemis was not a sun god at all—those powers were given to her twin brother, Apollo—but she was a virgin goddess who ruled over the moon, like Bast, and childbirth, like Sekhmet. Though the cat was only one of the animals Artemis was associated with, when the giant Typhon stormed Olympus and the terrified gods fled to Egypt, each of them disguised in animal form, Artemis took the form of a cat.
What we see here is a concept that’s at the heart of the House of Night series—the idea that the Goddess has been with us since the dawn of time, taking on different forms in different cultures. She has been known as Isis and Bast and Sekhmet, Nyx and Artemis and Hecate and Selene, Freya and Hel, and eventually Mary, mother of Christ. From the Egyptians on, cats were connected with many of these forms of the goddess. But as Goddess worship fell out of favor, so did cats.
Nyx in the House of Night Page 6
