The history of the Cinnamons

CinnamonFawnFancier, UK	Oriental Cinnamon & Fawn Group, UK

Maria Falkena -Röhrle

The first ever registered Cinnamon “Sprengel Melk” decided in the year1980 just my living room to come to the world. The true origin of the Cinnamons goes back a very long time , with the red Abyssinians, which gave them the colour. The Cinnamons and Fawns became fortunately never popular at the “large public”. They must have an eye for beauty and aesthetics around itself for this breed to inspire. I felt very sorry that people saw these cats not very often in Holland during the last years. For me, that was all so far in the past meantime. A beautiful but however final period in my life. A coincidence brought me in contact with Klaus Butz, which does not only love the Cinnamons like me at that time, but he also breed them with attention and large animal love. Nevertheless, the inheritance will be kept. That I myself, can be participate a little bit in that case, makes me very happy. However, it wasn't in vain. Thank You Klaus !

Litter of cinnamon Orientals "Sinsianna", A. Saltelli, UK

The colour “cinnamon” ranks in the Siamese cat breeding among the “new colours”. The cinnamon factor was caused through an outcross by red (sorrel) Abyssinians. This was done once in 1960 through Maureen Silson  (Cattery “Southview”) in England and four years later, 1964 through Maria Falkena Falkena-Roehrle (Cattery “van Mariendaal”) in the Netherlands. Against the widespread opinion that the cinnamon gene would come from the Abyssinian cats, it comes only over the Abyssinian cats into the Oriental cat breeding. The colour sorrel arrived only in the19. Century by an unknown cat into the Abyssinian breed and the colour was recognized just many years later by the Abyssinian breed federations. Unfortunately, it isn't  any longer comprehensible, through which type of cat it arrived into the Abyssinian lines.

At this time, Maria Falkena was a capacity in the attitude and raising of small wildcats. The foundation queen of her Oriental breed was an “Sudanesian Desert Cat” (Felis silvestris rubida). The alert character of this cat left itself into the descendants.

It took many years, until these beautiful cats were recognized by the breed federations. The independent Netherlands associations did this in the year 1980 for the Cinnamons and 1982 for the Fawn Oriental- and Siamese cats. The FIFe club could struggle itself only 1991 to recognize the Cinnamon self and Fawn self Orientals and in the year 2004 the Cinnamon- and Fawn-Point Siamese cats.

Siamese cinnamon point "En Tenere´s Gulugani", K. Butz, Frankfurt

In the seventies and eighties only a small group of breeders strove worldwide around the preservation of these colours. Most of the breeders gave up the cinnamon breeding after some years or they returned to the breeding of the classic colours. The reason for these matters are probably in the small interest of the cat lovers and otherwise by the less favourable breed conditions and a too small gene pool.

Fortunately, a clear upward trend is to observe and the Cinnamons and Fawns are on the way to “conquered” the hearts of the cat lovers.