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Birman In the Beginning
According to legend, the Sacred Cat of Burma, which was originally all-white, was revered in its native land, whose people believed that the souls of departed priests returned to their country's temples in the form of these beautiful cats. One of the temples where the sacred cats lived, the temple of Lao- Tsun, was located in western Burma between China and India. There a priest named Mun-Ha knelt in nightly adoration before a statue of the blue-eyed goddess Tsun-Kyan-Kse, who presided over the transmutation of souls. At Mun-Ha's side while he prayed was a sacred cat named Sinh.
One night invaders from Siam raided the temple and murdered Mun-Ha. At once Sinh stood with his front paws on Mun-Ha's head, facing the statue of Tsun-Kyan-Kse. As he did, a wondrous transformation occurred. Sinh's coat assumed the golden glow radiating from the statue of Tsun-Kyan-Kse. His yellow eyes turned a deep, sapphire blue; and his legs took on a warm, brown- velvet tone--except for his feet, which remained sparkling white, a sign of the purity of Mun Ha's soul. Miraculously, by the next morning all the cats in the temple had been thus transformed. For seven days Sinh remained at his post. Then he died, carrying with him the soul of Mun-Ha.
Ungilding the Legend
One breeder has observed that the legend of Sinh "fails to explain the exact scientific origins of the Sacred Cat of Burma." Just so. An inexact scientific explanation points to Siamese and longhaired, bicolored Angoras as likely participants in the Birman's mysterious beginning. It is futile, however, to speculate whether this combination--if it was the one that produced the Birman--was premeditated or whether it simply happened because those cats interbred freely in an isolated setting. Whatever the Birman's parent breeds might have been-- and wherever they might have joined forces--they had to have been carrying genes for point color, low-grade white spotting, and long hair.
The French Connection
Accounts of the arrival of the first Birmans in Western Europe are scarcely less fantastic than the temple legend. In two accounts a male named Maldapour and a female named Sita were shipped from Burma to France in 1919. Maldapour did not survive the journey according to either report. Sita, who was pregnant, did. In the first narrative, the cats had been sent by a grateful temple priest to Major Gordon Russell, a British officer who had helped several priests and their cats to escape from the temple of Lao-Tsun into Tibet during an uprising in Burma. In the second account, "a Mr. Vanderbilt" obtained the sacred cats "for a price of gold" from a greedy servant who had stolen them from the temple. In both accounts, Sita's fate is unknown; but it is reasonable to assume that her kittens--including a perfectly marked daughter named Poupee--were the foundation stock used to create the Birman breed in France.
There is a third account of the Birman's arrival in France, this one contained in an article in the 1969 Cat Fanciers' Association Yearbook. Verner E. Clum, the author of that article, claimed to have "a magazine dated 1927 'Le Monde Felin,' in which there is a picture of a Mme. Marcelle Adam, first importer of [the Birman] breed in France in 1925." Mme. Adam's cattery name, incidentally, was Maldapour, and she was president of the Federation Feline Francaise. This seemed to have settled the issue, but in her next paragraph Clum recounted the Major Russell story without bothering to say which of the two individuals--Mme. Adam or Major Russell--she believed was truly the first Birman importer.
By 1925 the Sacred Cat of Burma was well enough established to be recognized for championship competition in France. Though its numbers were small, the Sacred Cat prospered until World War II. After the war there was a time when all that stood between the breed and extinction was one pair of cats. Through selective outcrossing the breed was reconstructed. The process was speeded up, no doubt, by the introduction of colorpoint longhairs to Birman breeding programs.
The Sacred Cat of Burma was re-established in France by 1955. Four years later the first pair of sacred cats arrived in the United States. By the mid-1960s the breed began to be accepted for championship competition in North America. At about the same time its name was changed--to Burman and then to Birman. Although Birmans are now accepted for championship competition in all North American cat-registering bodies, the Cat Fancier's Association recognizes the breed in seal, blue, chocolate, and lilac only. Other associations accept additional colors as well.
It Looks Like ...
The Birman is a colorpoint cat with long, silky hair and four, pure white feet. Strongly built, elongated and stocky, the Birman should neither be svelte nor cobby. The Birman's distinctive head has strong jaws, a firm chin, and a medium- length Roman nose with nostrils set low on the nose leather. Its medium-sized ears should be wide set, and its blue, almost round eyes, should be set well apart, bestowing a sweet expression to the face.
The Birman's most distinguishing physical characteristics are its white gloves and laces. The gloves, on the front paws, must end in an even line across the third joint. The laces, on the hind feet, must extend two thirds of the way up the back of the hock, ending in a point. Whether or not divine intervention played any role in the origins of the Birman, breeders will tell you that it almost takes divine intervention to come up with properly defined gloves and laces.
It is not easy to predict which kittens in a litter will pass the white-gloves-and-laces test. "Birmans are born pure white," says one Birman breeder. "The color on the extremities comes in first. Then you wait for the gloves and laces to appear. And you do a lot of praying." Which is how, come to think of it, the Birman story began.
Personality
The Birman's origin may not be divine, but its temperament certainly is. Here is a gentle, affectionate, accommodating, people-oriented cat with a wonderfully balanced disposition. Birmans are intelligent, quietly curious about anything their owners are doing, and quick to form attachments to their people. Soft voiced, soft pawed, and soft on the eyes, Birmans are surely deserving of the legend that surrounds them.