Nekomata

猫股

The Origin of Nekomata:

The first appearance of the cat in Japan was recorded in 日本霊異記 Nihon Ryōiki, the Dietary minister Hirokuni's father became a cat after his death in Buzennokuni at Keiun 2 (705). During the early Heian period, there is no strange monsters or stories about cat recorded, however, the monster cat appeared right away when the time reached kamakura period. The first known record of Nekomata was recorded in Fujiwara no Teika's dairy, Meigetsuki, on August 2nd, Tenpuku 1 (1233) in Nara. A young messenger said there was a monster appeared in the city at that night, which has eyes of a cat and body as large as a dog. It injured eight people and killed even more. It was said that "every elder male cat can demonize and the one with pure yellow and pure black fur are more likely to become a Nekomata" in honchō shokukagami. Normally, Nekomata lives deep in mountains, has the size of a dog and can fight like a tiger. It also has forked tails, which is the most evident characteristic of a Nekomata. There is also the domesticated cat that raised up by human and become Nekomata when they getting old and transform.

People always thinking that Nekomata is a Japanese monster and was created by the Japanese, but it is not the case. There are already some records of cat monster called Hiyouki (Cat Ghost) in China at Sui Dynasty (589-617) which is six hundred years before the record in Meigetsuki. This Hiyouki monster will attack people, eat them and take away the wealth belonging they carried. More than that, there is a three years old cat in Jinhua (now Zhejiang Province) which always goes on the roof and absorbs the sun and the moon essence. This story becomes the original of Japan's cat monster, people in Japan use Nekomata as the kun'yomi of Jinhua Cat (golden cat), which indicates that this is the tale that comes from another country.

Algernon Freeman-Mitford, "The Vampire Cat of Nabéshima", Tales of Old Japan , Meiji 4 (1871)

The Appearance of Nekomata:

The recordation of Nekomata all indicates its giant body and the forked tail, which are two vital features of Nekomata. More than that, the appearance of Nekomata changes a lot with the change of time. As stated above, in Meigetsuki, the size of the Nekomata is like the size of a dog. But in 大和怪異記 Yamato Kaiiki, there is a script tells a strange story happened in ちくご (Chikugo) in 1708.

The story has happened in a home of a samurai. Every night there is a fireball with the size of a basketball floating and flying at three inches above the tatami and can never catch by anyone. The spinning wheel will turn by itself at night and people who sleep with head towards south will wake up with head towards north. These strange things kept happening and pray by monks and priests didn't do anything. One day the samurai looked at the rooftop in the night and saw a giant cat standing with its rear leg and tails on the rooftop, he got shocked then immediately shot it with an arrow and killed it. It has a tail which divided into two and has the size of 5 feet from head to tail.

In 和訓栞わくんのしおり, besides the size of the Nekomata, it also mentioned the other characteristics of Nekomata: The fur has a golden shine with it, the whiskers are very hard like the wire, the claws are dark and sharp just like the blade of a katana, and the full size of the body is 9 feets. When it was killed, the eyes keep opened with a bright shine like the stars.

Most of the appearance of Nekomata in those records are forked tails, a large size body which becomes bigger with the time evolve, fur with bright golden shine and claws which can easily tear up a strong samurai.

The Special of Nekomata

People in China and Japan believe that cat can control dead people without a shadow of doubt from long times ago. It seems like this belief is not entirely groundless by people's imaginations. There is a script in 反古風呂敷 that tells a story about a cat approached and turned the corpse back alive. In a village called Kurikurisawa-chō (Near Chiba ken nowadays), an old lady died at that time. Some naughty kids put an old cat with orange-gold fur on the dead body before anyone stopped them just want to see what will happen. unimaginably, the dead body came alive and hit the screen down with her fist. her hair stood up like needles and stared at people with her cloudy eyes maliciously, and scared the people around her. People started running away from her and she kept chasing them outside the house. When she saw people gathering together and hit her with clubs and hoes, she jumped highly onto the rooftop without any aid and leaves the crowd dangling. The dead body was discovered several days later with some blood on her mouth in a large wasteland. The custom of stabbing the dead body with blades after the exorcism started from Edo period. People believe that this story is the main reason why they have this custom.

Sometimes the cat Yokai will sneak into the funeral ceremony and try to steal the dead body. The 北越雪譜 Hokuetsu Seppu written by 鈴木牧之 Suzuki Bokushi have the record about this happened in Tenshō years. A farmers funeral was started in the blizzard and suddenly the day went dark and a Firefall flew out and stayed on the coffin. There is a forked tail giant cat inside the fireball and scared people away from the coffin, trying to steal the dead body. The monk in the crowd didn't afraid about the Nekomata, he chanted sutras and hit its head with his iron Ruyi. The Nekomata retreated from where it comes. People believe that there is some link between the cat and dead body, therefore cats are attracted by the dead body and could bring them alive.

The Transformation of Nekomata

Just like the story of Dirt Spider and the Shuten Douji, Nekomata can also transform into a human. Normally, Nekomata will transform into an old lady and live like a normal human.

The script in 新著聞集 Shin Chomonjū tells a story about a Nekomata that that doesn't eat people but transform into an old lady. One Samurai in Edo Period would like to find someone working as a tutor to help his daughter on the study, therefore, he went to Houinji Temple asking about that. The host there recommended a lady with middle-age who writes a good hand and good at singing. Her attitude and manner were properly trained and the samurai was very satisfied. He hired the lady to home and she worked as a tutor for many years. The samurai decided to check on his daughter on one night after years, and he found out that the woman was dyeing her teeth to black while his daughter was already in sleep. Her mouth was slit from ear to ear just like the Kuchisake-Onna and her ears were flipped backward. The samurai was startled by what he saw, and he waited until dawn soundlessly outside the door. He asked the lady to come out after sunrise and told her to have some rest these days outside the house. The lady was confused and asked for the reason as she had worked for a long time. The samurai didn't say anything and kept his mouth shut. The lady seemed aware of something and showed a horror face to the samurai. The samurai was scared and drew his sword against her just like Raiko did in the story of Dirt Spider. The lady turned back to its original form, a large old Nekomata, and disappeared quickly without any voice. The only things she left behind are 伊势物语いせものがたり and other books by famous authors which is very interesting that a cat monster is knowledgeable and learning the work by a human by itself.

Another story is about 高須源兵衛 and his cat recorded in 兎園小說 Toen shōsetsu that his mother was eaten by a Nekomata and it transformed as his mother afterward. 源兵衛 had a cat and it disappeared in 1824. People couldn't find it anywhere and it was at that time, his mother started using the screen when meeting people. She started having meals inside her room and sent every servant away before meals. 源兵衛 once watch stealthily behind the screen and found out his mother was having her meal when lying on her stomach. Every strange thing was similar to the thing that he heard before about the cat monster transformation. Coincidentally, once he was taking a bath, he hit a dark shadow heavily that jumping towards him with his fist, and the shadow run away silently. At the same time, he heard his mother had a backache which never happened before. The suspicion of his mother was abnormal increased a lot. He hit the screen using an arrow and he saw his mother standing up with her hands over her heart and said: "If you want to shoot me anyhow, just shoot here." 源兵衛 meditated for a long time and shoot his mother, she escaped from the room and died in the courtyard. He didn't find any cat in the courtyard but his mother's corpse and thought he killed his mother. He would like to seppuku to apology for killing his mother but he was stopped by his relatives and they told him to wait for another day. He stayed up the whole night and found the corpse turned back to a Nekomata with the fur same as the cat he kept before. He quickly went back to his mother's room, turned the tatami over and found out skeleton which probably was his real mother's bones.

It was said that most of the cat monster transformations are old ladies is because of the cattiness and artfulness of the cat. Cat likes lying in people's leg, it likes the touch of human skin. When it wants you to touch it, it will attract you with its sound. If you didn't come as its wish, it will do its best to attract your attention to it by patting. Those habits are similar to women, therefore Nekomata transforms into old lady and trick people. The comment in 夏山閑話ナツヤマカンワ says " There is a proverb that 'peony with the sleeping cat' says the nature of the cat. The cat is an animal that has a paranoid trait which can easily make people feel exhausted. Therefore most people who keep cats are women because they are similar."

Nekomata in Mordern Works

Like other Japanese monsters, Nekomata also appeared a lot in Modern artworks such as anime, manga, and games. In those artworks, people usually portray the Nekomata as a cute girl with two cat ears on her head and two tails in the back instead of a terrifying monster. Changing the Nekomata as a cute girl not only helps to attract the attention of the audience but also proves the relationship between cats and girls. In most of the productions, those Nekomata will behave like both human and cat, and most of them have the personality trait like a young kid, such as curiousness and wilfulness.

Touhou Project, which is "the most prolific fan-made shooter series" in the Guinness World Records, is the most famous game series that uses plenty of Japanese Yokai such as Nekomata, karakasa-obake, and Tengu. It is the game series produced by Shanghai Alice Ensemble, which has only one member ZUN (Jun'ya Ohta) and he is the main programmer, scriptwriter, graphic artist, and music composer. He developed all those characters by himself and developed background and music for every single character in the game. Because of those vivid characters with gives people deep impression, thousands of different authors have derivative work and secondary creation based on the background given by ZUN and form a great group of Touhou fans. There are two characters in the game series that is based on the Nekomata Yokai, one is called チェン Chen, and the other is called かえんびょうりん Kaenbyou Rin.

Some of the characters in Touhou project series. Note the Oni on the left with two horns, the Kyuubi no Kitsune in the middle with nine tails and the Yosuzume on the right side of the picture. Those are famous Japanese Yokai in Japan history and was reproduced in the series. ﾗｲｽｹはん, 博麗神社例大祭全員集合画像 , https://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=1480878

かんがる＠駄文書き , 東方自作立ち絵素材配布サイト・幻想幽玄庵から引用小説挿絵用 , 2013. https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=32723305

In the series, Chen is the shikigami of a Kyuubi no Kitsune and the Kitsune Yokai is the shikigami of another Yokai. In other words, Chen is the shikigami of a shikigami. She has the title of "the black cat who brings an ill omen." According to the background given by ZUN, she is a cat monster which gains demon force only when spirits possessed on her when the spirit leaves her, she won't turn back into a Fulu but keeps the appearance of a Nekomata. At that time is a timid cat monster and afraid of water, just like a normal cat does. Although the spirit leaves, she will still have the ability to talk and fly as a Nekomata but she doesn't have any special power or abilities at that time. It only has the ability to scare a normal human at that time, but the appearance and the trait will stay the same. More than that, when she is split by water, the spirit will immediately leave her body and turns back to the normal forms. Therefore, this Nekomata doesn't have a strong power like the Nekomata in the original tale.

ZUN (Jun'ya Ohta), Rin's illustration, Symposium of Post-mysticism, Official book, 2012.

Rin, on the other hand, is a stronger Yokai than Chen in the series. Because the sharp senses of detecting the dead body and approaching the dead in the folktale, people related the Yokai that steals the corpses of the dead, kasha, with Nekomata and sometimes seen them be the same. In the game, Rin is a Kasha Yokai and is also a Nekomata. She has the title of "A treachery dead cat" and has the ability to carry the dead body away with her. She has the ability to talk with the dead body and dead spirit, therefore the behavior of stealing dead body is like the behavior of cat catches the mouse. Because she always stays with the dead, there are always some spirits attracted by her and flying around her as the purple ghost. She also has two cat ears on her head and two forked tails behind her. However, she has two human ears which are different from Chen and that probably because the author thought Rin is able to hear the talk of dead spirits and added them.

All of those secondary creations of Nekomata in the modern artwork follows the original settings and traits of the Nekomata such as the figure of a girl/lady, attract the dead, have forked tails and have the same nature as the Nekomata in folktales. Those artworks help people know about the Yokai from the past and help people reconsider the relation of human and Yokai.

Bibliography

Foster, Michael. The Book of Yokai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore. University of California Press, 2015
Jeremiah, Ken and Walther G. von Krenner. Creatures Real and Imaginary in Chinese and Japanese Art: An Identification Guide. McFarland & Company, Inc., 2015.
Bane, Theresa. Encyclopedia of Beasts and Monsters in Myth, Legend and Folklore. McFarland & Company, Inc., 2016.
Hiraiwa, Yonekichi. Neko no rekishi to kiwa猫の歴史と奇話. 築地書館, 1992.
Tada, Katsumi and Natsuhiko Kyogoku . 妖怪図巻. 国書刊行会 , 2000.
Algernon Freeman-Mitford, "The Vampire Cat of Nabéshima", Tales of Old Japan , Meiji 4 (1871)
Toriyama Sekien, Hyakki yakô zu, Edo period. https://www.mfa.org/collections/object/night-procession-of-the-hundred-demons-26501
Utagawa Kunisada, Cat Witch of Okabe, 1845 - 1846. https://theartstack.com/artist/utagawa-kunisada/cat-witch-okabe
淏渊, 百鬼夜行之猫又, Hyakki yakô zu no Nekomata, 2018 https://www.jianshu.com/p/5c40f37ffe13
ﾗｲｽｹはん, 博麗神社例大祭全員集合画像 , https://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=1480878
かんがる＠駄文書き , 東方自作立ち絵素材配布サイト・幻想幽玄庵から引用小説挿絵用 , 2013. https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=32723305
ZUN (Jun'ya Ohta), Rin's illustration, Symposium of Post-mysticism, Official book, 2012.

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