Kaffir is also the name given to the small, thin, desert cats common in Egypt to Ethiopia and also in Cyprus. Unlike most animals, they have no intrinsic fear of human beings and will boldly walk into your home in search of the small-to-tiny game (rodents, insects, and the like) , offal and table scraps, that is their food. Speculation holds that this propensity, coupled with some evolved behavioral changes (cries mimicing that of a human baby, for instance) that led to the Egyptian (as opposed to the European) strain of domestic feline we know today. Kaffir bones have been found in human settlements in Cyprus from about 9000 BCE onwards.