Cat

The cat sits outside the twelve zodiac animals, and the traditional story explains why — a reading about exclusion rather than about the animal. The cat's most notable traditional feature is its absence from the zodiac, which the folk story explains by the rat's deception during the race.

Its use is documented across several registers at once. The cat sits outside the twelve zodiac animals, and the traditional story explains why — a reading about exclusion rather than about the animal. The cat-and-rat enmity is explained in the tradition by the race story rather than by natural behaviour, which is an unusually specific narrative explanation.

Sources treat the cat as a domestic animal with the practical role of protecting grain, and the zodiac story is the main reason it appears in the symbolic literature at all. It is grouped under Wood (木) in the five-element system.