TURKISH VAN CATS

FOLKLORE

We wish to acknowledge the kind co-operation of Miss Laura Lushington & Miss Sonia Halliday in the compilation of this article.

INTRODUCTION
An early visitor to Eastern Turkey recorded in his diary that, "Van was situated on the shores of a great lake but had little of historical interest for the discerning traveller". Strange that he should fail to mention the remains of the Ancient City of TUSHPA, which still stands a little to the west of the present day city of Van, or the early Christian Church of the Holy Cross built in 910 AD on the Island of AHTAMAR, the largest of Lake Van's islands. He did however mention being told by an elderly Turkish gentleman of a great cat with golden eyes that liked to swim. As he did not see such a cat for himself he dismissed the story as being nothing more than an attempt by the old man to stir up interest in a 'weary traveller' for an area that he felt had little to offer. Perhaps if he had been a little less weary (or sceptical) he might today be claiming the distinction of introducing to the Western World one of the most beautiful and certainly the most unusual breeds of a cat ever known. The following are extracts from articles by Laura Lushington written in 1962 and 1963. They tell how Laura, together with photographer Sonia Halliday, was first introduced to the Turkish Van Cat. Unfortunately they give us only a modest insight into the pioneering work involved and how much those of us who enjoy the company of these fascinating cats owe to their dedication and hard work.

LAURA LUSHINGTON 1962/3
"The Turkish people do not, as a rule, make a great fuss about animals, unless they serve some useful purpose. But there are two exceptions, the Ankara cat and the Van cat, both of which have been kept as domestic pets for hundreds of years. I first came across the Van cat about seven years ago (1955), while I was travelling through Turkey. I was given a female in South-Eastern Turkey and a male by the manager of the hotel in which I stayed in Istanbul - but I certainly didn't realise at the time they were something special. It was only after I had brought them home and the female had given birth to three white kittens with identical head and tail markings that I realised that they must be thoroughbred cats. Quite distinct in appearance, the Van cat has a medium-long chalk-white coat which feels more like mink than anything else. The only colour markings are the auburn marks on its head (sometimes it has a darker fur-line from the outer corners of it's eyes to its cheeks), and its bushy, auburn-ringed tail. The Van cat's eyes are always large and amber in colour; its skin is shell-pink, and its ears have long, delicately curved inner tuftings, sometimes with 'feathers' on the tips. Van cats can easily be trained, if treated sensibly, and apparently love to be with human beings. I have found Van cats extremely affectionate and they purr almost continuously. They can be house-trained without difficulty. These unusual cats are popularly called 'Swimming Cats'. I first discovered this liking for water on the drive back from Turkey with my original pair. The two kittens seemed to suffer from the heat as much as I did, and often lay panting limply in the back of the car. At atilla.jpg (12076 bytes) one point I came to a big river, with a shallow tributary running over clean gravel and shaded by large trees. Hot, dusty, and bad-tempered as I was, I did not hesitate before wading into the shallows and sitting down in the cool water, letting it flow over my tired feet and dry, burning arms. Then suddenly, to my astonishment, the Van kittens strolled into the water too, and swam out of their depth - apparently thoroughly enjoying themselves. This I suppose, is the reason they were dubbed 'Swimming Cats' by the press on my return to Britain. In order to provide the necessary dual breeding-line I went back to Turkey in 1959 to get another pair of Van cats. Although the Turks were very pleased that I should be interested in their famous 'Van Kedi' they couldn't understand why I should want to take them back to Britain 'as they do not catch mice'! I managed to find a pair of cats, although it was not easy (I only saw eight in more than 5000 miles of driving). I have been breeding from these and the original pair ever since and hope eventually to achieve the three clear generations required by the Cat Fancy for the breed to be recognised. This needs great perseverance and single-mindedness because so many things can go wrong, such as all-male litters (this seems quite common with Van cats), Caesarean births, sudden epidemics of diphtheria, and temporary sterility due to nutritional experiments carried out by the pet- food companies. I also insist on no more than one litter every 10 months - after all they are not factories. Some people advocate that I crossbreed my Van cats with some other similar type, such as Persian or a Chinchilla, because Van cats do not conform to the British standard for longhaired cats. But I maintain that whether it 'conforms' or not, the Van cat is already an established type of its own, with its long, straight Asiatic nose, no woolly undercoat, high cheekbones, and ears which are sometimes enormous while they are kittens. I am sure that in order to be classed as a true Van the cat must be bred solely from Van stock. Experimental cross-breeding to achieve this or that perfection might be interesting, but it would be unorthodox and the result would not be a pure Turkish Van cat. I hope that I shall not be condemned for my temerity in trying, genuinely, to preserve a breed. In April 1963 I told the story of my Van cats from Turkey, and I described both how I came to own and love them, and some of their eccentricities and fascinating characteristics. Now at last I have been to Van, in Eastern Turkey, and seen with my own eyes the ancient city of Van and the glorious Lake Van. I suppose the first point I must establish is that there are, in fact, Van cats in Van Sehir (the city of Van), and that they are very much part of the local scene. My photographer and I were given special permits to visit Van by air, for two days and two nights, and we were accompanied by an excellent guide, Riza Bey, who helped us to enjoy those two days to the full. I must confess I did not see a Van cat actually swimming in Lake Van, but this was hardly remarkable because the lake shores are very thinly populated, and domestic cats, particularly the Van, do not stray far from home. Also the fishing expeditions that delight other varieties of Asiatic cats who live near seashores, or lakeshores, are after all only indulged in because there are fish! Lake Van is a 'soda-lake', with fish feeding only at great depths near to estuaries, thus a Van cat has more sense than to waste his time fishing. Whether or not they swim for pleasure, as mine did on the return journey through Europe with me, I do not know - I could not stay long enough in any village to find out their habitual routines. All I can say is that one part of my reason for visiting Van was well rewarded, I have seen modern Van cats in their own original and traditional area of Turkey. The second part of this eight year old dream was also fulfilled, in that I was able to study, however briefly, the general atmosphere and the geographical, historical, and biological, setting of this unique breed. I had longed to go to Van ever since 1955, because I felt it was essential to understand the country of origin to fully understand the Van cat. This may sound a little romantic, and going too far in the field of cat-breeding, but to substantiate the theory that environment and heredity are bound to influence any breed of man or beast, I must say I was intensely interested in this part of Turkey. Before leaving Turkey I saw several Van cats - individuals, individually owned - in quite disparate areas, but curiously enough, never far from water. Once we were underwater fishing off an island on the south coast of Turkey, and when we came ashore, there was an enormous specimen of the Van breed curled up contentedly in a disused lobster-pot, in a temperature of 95 °F! He did not object to being held up for his photograph to be taken, but he did not like as many 'poses' as my photographer felt was necessary, and eventually he retired to the comparative shade of a pile of tinder-dry driftwood. He must have weighed 12 to 14lbs and was in his prime and very muscular. Another time we were looking for some Turkish friends holidaying in Anatolia, and on passing through a village we saw another male Van cat sleeping curled up in the shade of a blue gum tree. It is guzelli.jpg (11953 bytes) typical of the masculine way of life and the male privilege to 'coffee-house' and stroll unaccompanied, that we never saw a female Van cat outside the houses! Perhaps the most delightful sight, because of its unexpectedness, was the pet Van tom-cat we passed on the open road. He was owned by a family of Gypsies, and he wore a collar and lead. He was sitting in the lap of the Gypsy grandmother, being petted, while they waited for a bus and had stopped to drink and wash at a roadside fountain. An interesting point on the hardiness of the Van cats is surely the extremes of climate that they encounter, from snow for at least 6 months of the year to the exceptional heat of the summers. These climatic differences would also account for the luxuriant winter fur which is almost non-existent in summer, giving the cats the appearance of being much more short-haired. The average weight, we found, for a fully-grown male is 12lbs; their build is short, cobby, and muscular. Neutered males tend to grow very large, and can be as much as 16-19lbs in weight. The females are daintier and average 8lbs. All Van cats have shell-pink pads, ears and noses, and beautiful 'feathering' in the ears. The eyes are large, lustrous and amber in colour. The number of auburn rings on the tail varies from 5-8, and the tail is short. Auburn back markings vary in quantity, but the fewer the better; they always have the auburn marked head and forehead. The nose is distinctive, being long in comparison with the foreshortened nose of some of the longhaired breeds. It now only remains for my Van cats to complete their family trees to the 4th generation, as required by the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy, and I hope that I shall have done something to preserve this interesting breed and to introduce it to Europe."

On the l2th February 1969 delegates to the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy (GCCF) voted in favour of granting breed recognition to the Turkish Van Cat designating the breed number 13d. The application was supported by the Colorpoint, Rex-coated and Any Other Variety Club. Among the documents submitted to the GCCF was a letter dated 29th May 1968 written by Professor Dr Emin Ariturk, the Acting Head of the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Ankara, who confirmed that the Van Cats of Turkey were a recognised breed and had been bred domestically in Turkey for many years. He added that he had been following the work of Laura Lushington and her fellow breeders for the preceding 13 years. Appropriately the first Turkish Van Champion was Laura's own 'Van Alanya'. Laura made scant reference to the problems, set-backs and disappointments they faced during those 13 years, not least of all was the GCCF requirement for 4 generations instead of the expected 3. But no doubt the natural hardiness of a breed produced by nature not by experiment and the careful management of the cats in the early days helped them to win through. Two further cats were brought to England in 1980 and one more in 1992. It is firmly believed by the majority of Van cat breeders and owners that the only way to preserve these beautiful cats in their original form, is to go back to source (i.e. Turkey) whenever 'new blood' is needed to retain the natural vigour of the breed.

GEOGRAPHICAL INFLUENCE
The Turkish Van cat can appear at first to be something of a contradiction in type. Most people think of Turkey as being a hot country and the Van cat with it's profuse coat, tufted feet and ears would seem to be ill equipped to cope with a hot climate. The Van basin in eastern Turkey is surrounded by mountains, and its high plateau is subject to changes in temperature difficult to imagine. In summer 36° or even 40° is not unusual, and in the winter temperatures vary between -13° in the towns to -35° on the high ground. Mother Nature has a wonderful way of equipping animals with all they need to cope with their natural environment, and the Turkish Van is a typical example of her expertise. The silky texture of the coat makes it an ideal insulating material, while the long tufts of fine hair help to protect the delicate pink skin of the inner ear from driving snow and freezing winds. The tufts of hair on the underside of the feet protect the pads from frozen ground and snow, and the muscular body is ideally suited to withstand the changeable and often harsh climate. Lacking the woolly under coat of most other longhair cats, which would soon become a tangled and uncomfortable nuisance to a cat living in a region covered in snow for almost 6 months of every year, Van cats shed their coat in late spring, leaving them superbly equipped to cope with the blistering heat of high summer. Van is a remote and often isolated part of Turkey, in its mountainous regions wolves and deer roamed freely up until 20 or so years ago. The people of Van tell how many years ago the Van cat also lived in the mountains, coming down into the villages and towns only in the winter to seek food and shelter, and how gradually some of them learned to trust their human benefactors enough to stay. It would be so easy to dismiss this as just another story, but remember that weary traveller who cynically dismissed the story of the swimming cat with golden eyes! Sadly the Van cat population has been depleted in recent years, not least of all by tourists willing to trade in what they regard as fashionable pets, but there is no doubt that these beautiful cats are an indispensable part of life in this eastern Turkish city. Tales of legendary felines crop up regularly amidst other more mundane topics of conversation in Van's crowded all male cafes. While the women of Van are fond of discussing the nobility and moral values of their cats they add that Van cats have been domesticated for many years yet they still appear at times to retain the independence of the wild. No Van cat will tolerate neglect and is quick to take offence at an owner who fails to pay it due attention, and will not hesitate to abandon the home if slighted. Added to all that they will tell you that the Van cat is as proud and brave as a lion, that they make loveable, affectionate pets with a remarkably long life span. In recent years, due to the political difficulties since the Gulf war, soldiers and security police have been regularly patrolling Turkish borders with Iraq, Iran and Syria and have reported seeing cats that they have identified as Van cats in the mountains at heights over 2,000 ft. The staff at the recently established Van Cat Research Institute at Yuzuncu Yil University are convinced that these cannot be domesticated Van cats out for an afternoon stroll, but true wild Van cats living as their ancestors did many years ago.

lakevan.jpg (14240 bytes) FOLKLORE and HISTORICAL FINDS
The city of Van is but a few miles from Mount Ararat and there are those who like to believe that when the Ark came to rest on the mountain top and the flood waters receded that the cats left the Ark and made their way down the mountain slopes into Van. Indeed the spot of auburn colour often seen on or near the left shoulder of the Van cat is said to be the spot where Allah accidentally touched the cats as He blessed all the animals as they were leaving the Ark. The origin of the Turkish Van is lost in antiquity but archaeological finds in Van province (formally part of Armenia) of relics possibly from an ancient battle during the occupation of Armenia by the Romans (AD 75-387), include battle standards and armour bearing images of a large pale self coloured cat showing distinctive rings on the cat's tail. Even more recently, during the excavation by the British Archaeological Institute in Ankara of a late Neolithic (7000 years ago) site near Hacilar, 22 small terracotta statues said to be women playing with cats were found on one level. Because of this discovery some scientists now question the long held belief that cats were first domesticated in Egypt.

THE FINAL WORD
The final word goes not to Laura as one might expect but to a Turkish gentleman who expresses a sentiment with which we are sure both Laura and Sonia would agree. "Van cats have been domesticated for many years, but now it is only with the support of people who view them with true affection that they will survive".

* * *

[ Top of Page ]