Cats

Savitri Devi loved all animals, but cats were her favorites. She acquired her first housecat when she was two. Although Savitri was a nomad most of her adult life, she always fed and cared for feral cats, and whenever she settled in one place for a while, she adopted housecats as well. (The only other house pets she mentioned were two cobras that she kept when she lived in Jallundhar in the Punjab, in the first half of 1936.)

It was not Savitri’s practice to name her cats, perhaps out of respect for their wildness, perhaps because she thought they already had their own names. Thus in her letters to friends, she merely described her cats (“orange and white,” “black and white,” etc). Those of her cats that did have names either came to her already named or their descriptions took on the quality of names (for example, Long-Whiskers and Black Velvet). It is also possible that Savitri broke her own rule occasionally with a particular favorite.

Most of the pictures here are actual portraits of her favorite cats. The last three pictures, however, seem to be merely stock photos of cats that she chose to illustrate her book Long-Whiskers and the Two-Legged Goddess.