FELINE SHADOWS IN THE RISING SUN:

CULTURAL VALUES OF CATS

IN PRE-MODERN JAPAN1

DIEGO CUCINELLI
(Sapienza University of Rome)

As for cats, the most beautiful are those black

on the back and white on the belly
(Sei Shōnagon, Makura no Sōshi)2

With these words Makura no Sōshi (The Pillow Book 枕草子, late X century), a
cross-section of life and costumes of the imperial court of the Heian period (794
-1185), depicts the cat as a frivolous delight of nobles - probably the first ones in
the Rising Sun to introduce it in domestic environments - during endless hours
of idleness. This work is part of the large body of written sources that confirm
the presence of the feline in Japan and its interaction with man more than 1000
years ago. In fact the history of this descendant of the smilodon stretches over
billions of years and its roots are lost in time.3 The cat underwent a difficult and
somewhat jarring mutation, from killer beast of the cold North America to ever-
present animal of the domestic hearth. Its natural ambiguity allowed it to go
through the different stages of this process occupying, from time to time, new
and often contrasting positions in different human and animal social contexts. As
Detlef said, during the course of the ages “the cat has been worshipped and
hated, welcomed and hunted, considered divine and satanic”.4 Not few are the
peoples who’ve had a special attitude towards it: at times respectful, at times
pitiless and cruel. The Egyptians were the first to domesticate the felis silvestris
lybica (African wild cat) and to make a divinity of him. Mummifying and
putting it in the tombs, they made it a companion in the voyage towards the
afterlife. After making his reputation as unerring mouse hunter, he became very
popular in the cities of the Roman Empire and spread to most of Europe. During
the Middle Ages it was associated to satanic worship, and often sent to the stake
with its owners, considered to be witches by the Inquisition. Notwithstanding

1
We want to express our thankfulness to the reviewer for the availability and the helpful
advices in evaluating this article.
2
The passage is taken from Sei Shōnagon 1991, p. 69 (English translation by the author).
3
The smilodon is the largest saber-toothed tiger to have ever existed: it could reach 5 feet long
and 3 feet high. See Carroll 1988, p. 59.
4
Detlef 2008, p. 10 (English translation by the author).
436 MING QING STUDIES 2013

these variations which connoted its history, cats don’t seem to have lost their
strong feeling of independence and their perceptiveness, qualities which made it
stand out against other animals throughout the ages.
In Japan, the cat was probably introduced from China around the VI
century A.D. It was common use to keep at least two cats in the temples, to
prevent mice from eating religious manuscripts. The main literary works of the
Nara period (710-794) never mention cats, but we find traces of them in
folklore: the Japanese fable refers widely to the feline, praising it as a shrewd
predator, a funny animal and at times, a real killer who prevails over human
beings. The latter is the case of the tale of the diabolic “turtle cat”, the mikeneko
(“three color-furred animal” 三毛猫),5 with fiery eyes, which attacks and
savagely kills the old owner leaping on her from a cantilever in the ceiling
because she betrayed its secret. In another tale the feline is presented as faithful
ally of man endowed with an extraordinary intellect which allows it to make
fools of mouse and dog.6 Nonetheless not all cats which appear in Japanese
folklore can boast the same wit of the mikeneko: the protagonist of the fable The
cat and the twelve signs of the zodiac, not being particularly smart, is cheated by
the mouse to the point of being excluded from the zodiac.7
Nowadays the animal is part of costumes which date back into antiquity.
The manekineko (招き猫), or “inviting cat”, is very popular in commercial
folklore. Usually made of paper-pulp or brightly colored ceramic and often
shown in shops windows, it represents a cat with a paw raised which, according
to local superstition, would assure a constant flow of customers. On the other
hand, Japanese sailors believe the turtle-cat able to foresee an approaching
storm; the story says the cats were sent on top of the masts in order to drive
away the restless souls of shipwrecked mariners threateningly riding the waves.
The yamaneko (wild cat 山猫) is another feline character of the
Japanese folklore. It seems to have been in Honshū and Shikoku since the
Jōmon period (14.000-300 B.C.) and, even though it died out during the Yayoi
period (300 B.C.-300 A.D.) it remained in the popular culture and was seen as a
disturbing mountain dweller.8 According to a story told in the Oki islands in the
Shimane prefecture, in 1940, more than thirty years after the end of the Russian-
Japanese conflict, a Russian soldier broke into a local hospital throwing it into
confusion. Following this event people begun to believe that a yamaneko, after
having infiltrated the nearby cemetery where Russian soldiers were buried, took
possession of one of the corpses and used it for its purposes exactly like a
puppeteer does with his puppet. The characteristics of other wild cats typical of

5
Source analysis draws attention to the fact that in ancient Japan the level of danger was
determined by the fur color, the most feared being the tones of red. Hino Iwao 2007 and 2006.
6
The author is here referring to the following fables: “The cat’s song”; “The dog, the cat and
the ring”. For further details see Orsi 2000.
7
Ibid, pp. 276-278.
8
In this regard see Nakamura Teiri 2006a and 2006b.
 Feline Shadows in the Rising Sun 437

Japanese popular culture are attributed to the yamaneko by the oral tradition of
Shimane, Miyagi and other prefectures: it weighs more than a kan (3,8 kg), lives
in mountain areas, takes delight in singing, dancing and practicing sumō, is
particularly good in cheating people and likes spying on houses in constant
search of food and kids to devour.9
There is an osmotic relationship between fables and folk tales and the
literary world. Japanese literature is no exception: many works have been
generated from this migration and one of the most famous example can be
considered the Taketori Monogatari (The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter 竹取物語,
909). In Meigetsuki (Chronicle of the Bright Moon 明月記, about 1235), a work
composed between 1180 and 1235 by Fujiwara Teika (藤原定家, 1162-1241),
the feline is represented as a supernatural creature. On the second of August of
the first year of the Tenpuku age (1233), Teika says that in Nara, in the space of
a single night an enormous two-tailed cat-like monster called nekomata (猫股)
attacked and ate eight people.10
Besides being in the famous Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness 徒然草,
1331) by Kenkō Hōshi (兼好法師, 1282-1352)11, this same monstrous beast is
also described in Sorori Monogatari (The Tales of Sorori 曽呂利物語, 1663),
generally attributed to Sorori Shinzaemon (曽呂利新左衛門, ?-?).12 In the fifth
tale of the third maki (handscroll 巻) titled Nekomata no koto (About a nekomata
ねこまたのこと), a wild boar hunter lies in wait on mount Hiei using the
technique called nutamachi (“waiting for prey” ヌタ待ち),13 waiting for the
animals to show up. In the middle of the night he is approached by a being with
the features of his wife who warns him of an imminent storm. Nonetheless the
man, fearing a trap, shots an arrow at the creature forcing it to flee. Back home,
the hunter finds the front door stained with blood. When, out of breath, he finds
his wife in perfect health, he follows the footprints until he comes across the
corpse of an enormous cat. In the fourth maki of Tonoigusa (The Tales of the
Straw Bed 宿直草, 1677), a kanazōshi (仮名草子) written by Ogita Ansei
(荻田安静, ?-1679), the event told is almost the same: the nekomata, instead of
the wife, has the features of the mother of the protagonist.14

9
Look under the entry “nekomata” in Murakami Kenji 2005, pp. 341-342.
10
Fujiwara Teika, 1974.
11
In Chapter 89 Kenkō describes the mishap of a bonze who’s attacked by a nekomata near a
river in an unknown area. It is unclear though, whether the attacking creature is the
supernatural feline beast, or the man’s dog itself, who ran towards him hearing his presence
near the house. Kenkō 1985, p. 93.
12
Sorori Shinzaemon 1989.
13
It is an ancient hunting technique where the hunter stays in ambush for a long time, until his
prey, particularly deer and wild boar go out in the open. Nakamura Teiri 2006, pp. 143-144.
14
Ogita Ansei 2002.
438 MING QING STUDIES 2013

In both works the nekomata is described as a monster, which dwells in

the innermost mountainous areas and has the faculty of turning into human
being. The source of these texts is in all probability an old legend from times
immemorial told in many areas of Japan, particularly in Ecchū:15 according to
local folklore, old cats turn into nekomata and leave the houses where they have
been raised in order to move to the mountains and infest them with their malign
presence. Following the transformation, the size grows remarkably and the body
turns into the one of a dog, with the exception of the eyes, which remain cat-
like.
Often mistaken for a badger (tanuki 狸), cats are found in the most
ancient Buddhist continental collection of anecdotes (setsuwa 説話) as creatures
capable of changing shape and always ready to make fun of human beings.16
Their occurrences are characterized by terrifying elements, often linked to the
supernatural and superstitious sphere of non-urban contexts. As Nakamura
pointed out, until the first half of the Muromachi period (1338-1573) the general
tendency in Japanese literature and, most of all, in Buddhist collection of
anecdotes was that of assimilating tanuki also to other animals belonging to
different families: wild boar, badger, cat (wild and domestic). The conceptual
differentiation between cat and raccoon is likely to have taken place in the
period between the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth
century. At the time a great wave of social and economic change hit Japan and
marked the beginning of a fast urbanization process: the divide between
countryside and city had become wider and wider. In fact, already in the Heian
period literature, the cat is portrayed in a different way: it is part of the life of the
capital and of its palaces, and has its own social status. Cats are a big success. In
Kanpyōgyoki (Chronicles of the Kanpyō Era 寛平御記, 889) a black cat given
as a present to the Emperor Uda (宇多天皇, 867-931) is described in detail,
with all its habits.17 The tōneko (“Chinese cat” 唐猫) was very popular in the
rich residences of the members of the court, and became a main feature of the
literature which portrays their life. The feline can be found in the pages of works
such as The Pillow Book and Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji 源氏物語, XI
century), bolstering the theory that the animal was introduced in Japan from the
Continent around 1000 A. D. and that, thanks to the success of Sei Shonagon
(清少納言, 966-1017) already from the first half of the Heian period different
races and types of cats could be found in Japan. In the Wakana (Wakana 若菜)
chapter of the Genji Monogatari the description of two felines not only gives an
interesting piece of information about the culture of cats inside the court of

15
The modern Toyama Prefecture.
16
Refer to Nihon Ryōiki (Japanese Chronicles of the supernatural and the extraordinary
日本霊異記, IX century), a work composed around 823 by the monk Keikai (景戒, ?-?) on
the model of Chinese tradition of Buddhist anecdotes. See Migliore 2000, pp. 13-37.
17
Emperor Uda was the 59th emperor of Japan from 887 to 897.
 Feline Shadows in the Rising Sun 439

Kyoto, but helps going back to the anthropological origins of the nekotsuki
(“feline possession” 猫憑き) superstition in ancient Japan. In this light, co-head
Kashiwagi’s (柏木) nightmare might be read differently. In the nightmare he’s
attacked by the spirit of the cat stolen from Princess Nyosan (女三宮) [Fig.1].
The general interpretation sees the spirit as omen for the birth of a baby. In
opposition to this interpretation, the nightmare might be seen as a warning of the
spirit of the tōneko towards those who had tried to turn it away from the love of
its owner.
The ghostly display of the cat in Kashiwagi’s oneiric world might then
be an echo of the episode in which the body of the dying young Murasaki is
possessed by the shiryō (spirit of the dead 死霊) of the Lady Rokujō (rokujō no
miyasudokoro 六条御息所).18

Fig. 1. The Princess Nyosan and her cat in a print by Suzuki Harunobu

18
The shiryō is the manifestation of a dead person’s ghost, angry for not having reached
nirvana. Superstition says that it possesses the bodies of its victims, leading them to death.
See Murakami Kenji 2005, pp. 178-179.
440 MING QING STUDIES 2013

On the other hand, an ancient legend says that cats were introduced only
in 999, when a white cat imported from China gave birth to five kittens in the
imperial court of Kyoto. They were so beautiful that the Emperor Ichijō ordered
the courtiers to breed, take care and pet them as royalty. Cats were also believed
to be a possible instrument for freeing the country from a terrible invasion of
mice which threatened to destroy the silkworm population.19 In Li Shizhen
(李時珍, 1518-1593) Honzōkōmoku (Medical Compendium 本草綱目, 1578),20
a sort of encyclopedia of China’s animals and plants, which spread throughout
Japan,21 the feline is described in a distorted way as the animal that “gives birth
after two months, becomes pregnant with more than one kitten and often feeds
on its offspring”. It is with Nihon Shakumyō (Etymological Dictionary of
Japanese Words 日本釈名, 1699), a three-maki Japanese vocabulary completed
towards the end of the Edo period (1600-1867) that a convincing explanation of
the etymology of the name of this animal is given. According to it, it was the
feline’s greedy passion for rodents that earned it the epithet neko (cat 猫). The
etymology of the word is in fact derived from the first syllables of the sentence
nezumi o konomu (鼠を好む), meaning “(the animal) which likes mice”.22
Along with the aforementioned examples of the Emperor Uda and the
proven cat lover Lady Sei Shōnagon, there exist works set in the Kyoto court
which describe the relationship between man and cat as not quite idyllic.
Konjaku Monogatarishū (Anthology of Tales of the Past 今昔物語集, 1120)
reports an episode where a nice cat and an important feudatory of the Iga and
Yamashiro provinces are protagonists.23 According to the tale, “the great lord
who feared cats” (nekooji no daifu 猫怖大夫) – probably Fujiwara Kiyokado
(藤原清廉, ?-?) – was shut in a dark room with one of these animals by a tax
collector who, knowing the feudatory aversion for cats, used this ploy to make
him pay.24
While the Kyoto court literature has mainly celebrated the cat’s
aesthetic qualities and its pet characteristics, in the literary production of the
warrior society of the Kamakura period (1185-1333) a strong dreadful and
ghostly component is associated with cats. Besides the aforementioned
nekomata described by Fujiwara Teika, one of the first felines to cross the
threshold of the supernatural is the cat that is described in Kokonchomonjū
(Collection of Ancient and Modern Extraordinary Events 古今著聞集, 1254),

19
For a more detailed analysis of the history of cats in Japan, see Okada Akio 1980.
20
With regard to this work, see Unschuld 1986.
21
With regard to the success of Li Shinzen’s work in Japan, see Ono Ranzan 1992, pp. 34-40.
22
Look under the entry “neko” in Kaiwara Masunoki Kai 1973, pp. 356-357.
23
Ury Marian 1985.
24
Probably the tax collector is Fujiwara Sukekimi (藤原輔公, ?-?), the Governor of the
Yamato province from 1004 to 1013. See Kitayama Shigeo 2004, p. 219.
 Feline Shadows in the Rising Sun 441

by Tachibana Narisue (橘成季, ?-?).25 The work, together with Konjaku

Monogatari and Ujishūi Monogatari (Uji’s Tales 宇治拾遺物語, first half of
XIII century) is part of the trilogy of the main setsuwa genre works composed in
ancient Japan.26
In the Edo period the image of cat becomes linked with that of “death”
(shi 死). In Kōsekishū (Collection of Minerals 礦石集, 1693) by the shingon
(true word 真言) monk Rentai (蓮体, 1663-1726) and in Hokuetsuseppū (Snow
Country Tales: Life in the Other Japan 北越雪風, 1837) there are tales about a
feline which transforms into a kasha (火車), the “chariot of fire” that carries the
dead souls of criminals into the Buddhist hell.27 In all these works, especially the
first one, a feline “association” of kasha lead by a bakeneko (ghostly cat
化け猫)28 cleans up the capital from the corpses of those who acted against
Buddhist advice and offended its three treasures (sanbō 三宝). The more the
superstition about an old cat transforming into a kasha and stealing corpses from
coffins spread, the more devices to drive this evil presence away are required:
besides some magic formulas (jumon 呪文) devised by monks in order to defeat
these creatures, sources let us believe that the most effective weapons to chase
feline kasha away are juzu (Buddhist rosary 数珠), as also Kōsekishū’s
bakeneko confirms to the old monk.
The same work contains other interesting anecdotes about ghostly cats:
one in particular tells of a meeting of dancing nekomata, the same feline
typology which will inspire, a century later, Toriyama Sekien’s hand (鳥山石燕,
1712-1788) in drawing the sashi-e (illustration 挿絵) for the headword
“nekomata” in his Gazu Hyakki Yagyō (The Illustrated Devilish Horde
画図百鬼夜行, 1772) [Fig.2].29 The story tells of a married couple whose cat,
during a summer night, steals a handkerchief (tenugui 手拭い) from a drawer
and, together with its cat friends starts dancing with the handkerchief on its
head. The wife, who witnessed the event from behind a shōji (sliding panels
障子) is scared by such a presence and asks her husband to kill the cat.

25
Hongō Keiko 2010, pp. 50-57.
26
Mills 1970.
27
Hunter 1986.
28
It is one of the most common shapes an old cat undergoes while transforming into
supernatural creature. Among its main traits are understanding and mastering human
language, being able to transform at his liking, dancing with its head covered by a
handkerchief. See Murakami Kenji 2005, p. 262.
29
This work can be considered an extension of the research on zukan (catalogues 図鑑), a
production connected to natural science studies of the Edo period where any known form of
animal and plant was registered. The formal choices made by the artist though, make it a
parody. The author separates the creatures from the legends connected with them and gives a
dry cataloguing where in most cases an illustration of the creature is added to its name.
Tanaka Takako and Komatsu Kazuhiko 1999, pp. 10-15.
442 MING QING STUDIES 2013

Nonetheless, the cat is not taken by surprise and flees the house. Vengeance,
though, falls on its owner after a while, while she is in the bath.

Fig. 2. Toriyama Sekien’s nekomata

This short story points out the peculiar relationship between the
character of the dancing nekomata and the tenugui, a recurrent theme in other
works of the same period.30 Sources differ about the circumstances where the
event takes place, but agree on the dances (odori 踊り) practiced by the cats, the
fact that they communicate through human language (ningen no kotoba

30
In fact similar tales are found in Shinchomonjū (Collection of New Tales 新著聞集, 1750),
in Tankai (The Sea of Tales 譚海, 1795), in Bunka Hihitsu (Secret Tales of the Bunka Era
文化秘筆, first half of XIX century), and in Tani no Hibiki (The Noise of the Valley
谷の響き, second half of XIX century). See Kitajima Hirotoshi 2009, pp. 192-204.
 Feline Shadows in the Rising Sun 443

人間の言葉), and the use of the handkerchief as headgear. Another common

feature is the cat’s gender, all female cats, and their ability in opening sliding
panels and drawers. As previously seen, in the Kamakura period nekomata had
special powers, like transforming into humans. It is typical from the Edo period,
though, to represent specimens involved in dancing. The meaning of the tenugui
used as headgear might then be that of distinguishing (at graphic level also) the
new generation nekomata from its predecessor, acknowledging it as endowed
with artistic capabilities (dance) and giving it connotations (as its sex), unknown
to the sheer killer described in the previous works.
It needs to be said that in the Edo period it was largely common to use a
handkerchief to cover the head as sign of respect, and during nihon butō
(“Japanese dance” 日本舞踏) performances.31 Due to these links with the sacred
and the dance it is then possible to think of nekomata’s tenugui not only as
testimony of the costumes of the age but as a magical object indispensable for
the cats to enact the ritual of dancing on two paws and communicating with its
fellows in the language used by humans.32
The aforementioned confusion between cat and tanuki clears up with
the new generation of supernatural literature which imposed itself during the
Muromachi’s period, particularly in the collections following the hyaku
monogatari (“hundred tales” 百物語) model.33 The cat is in fact the protagonist
of the tales set in urban contexts, while the tanuki is the protagonist of ones set
in rural environments. This conceptual division between the two animals finds a
correspondence also on the gender level: while the raccoon transforms
predominantly into male human beings,34 the cat tends to take upon the features
of charming young women or old blood-thirsty ladies. The study of the stylistic
and conceptual choices found in this literary genre allow us to assume the
31
For further details on this art, see Centonze 2001, pp. 151-166.
32
Since ancient times the tenugui was used during ceremonies. Its cultural heritage may be
found in today’s use of the tsuno kakushi (“horns-cover” 角隠し), a hood worn by the bride
during traditional weddings.
33
This practice, with the extended name of hyakumonogatari kaidankai (百物語怪談会),
becomes extremely trendy during this period and consists of séances made in half darkness by
a group of people gathered in a room where a hundred lamps (tōshin 灯心) are disposed in a
ring. Inside the ring are the participants: each of them has to tell a story connected with his
origins, or a personal gruesome experience. Once the tale is finished the narrator turns off one
of the lamps. This practice is considered to be a rite of evocation, where tales and lamps direct
the spiritual energy towards the circle, thus changing the room into a “lighthouse” for the
dead souls. According to tradition, when the last lamp is turned off a supernatural being
should manifest itself. Even though its origins are not clear, hyaku monogatari kaidankai is a
practice conceived by samurai as kimodameshi (肝試し), “test of courage”, in order to
measure soul’s strength and endurance. Nonetheless, as sources tell, it seems to have spread
through other social classes, involving peasants, merchants and wandering monks. See
San’moto Maki 2010, pp. 247-251.
34
Think of the many tanuki which transformed into Buddhist monks described in the most
famous collections of anecdotes.
444 MING QING STUDIES 2013

possibility of gender studies theories applied to the sphere of the Japanese

“animal” literature. Among the many authors, important exponents are
Miyazawa Kenji (宮沢賢治, 1896-1933) and Dazai Osamu (太宰治, 1909-
1948), who wrote Kachi Kachi Yama (Kachi Kachi Mountain かちかち山,
1945).35 Besides, it is then plausible to connect the literary elements of the urban
cat transforming into a woman of the city and that of the wild cat which is
closer, in the Far East literary tradition, to the idea of ghostly and charming
devilish woman: the fox (kitsune 狐). From this breeding ground comes one of
the many variations on the theme of the oni musume (鬼娘) or “demon young
girl”. This had great success during the Edo period thanks to the production of
kibyōshi (“yellow books” 黄表紙). In one of these short stories a rich man of the
city catches a young prostitute (yūjo 遊女) in the act of having a snack.
Astonished and embarrassed for having been caught in a moment of privacy she
loses control and reveals her true form, that of a cat.36
One of the probable causes for the progressive estrangement of the cat
from the supernatural genre beginning from the second half of the Edo period is
probably due to its domestication, that allowed man to exorcise his fear through
regular contact with cats.37 In this process of introduction to home life the feline
lost its ghostly and terrifying appearance and assumed that of mouse hunting pet
in constant fight with its main antagonist: dog (inu 犬).
Initially much appreciated as pet among courts, later throughout all
society, the feline seems to have been particularly dear to women: ukiyo-e art,
and especially the works of Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳, 1798-1861)38 show
ladies of the court and women of the city playing and tenderly fondling cats.
One of his most famous works, Myōkaiko Gojūsanbiki (Fifty Three Adorable
Cats 猫飼好五十三匹, 1848) consists in fact in a parody of Utagawa
Hiroshige’s (歌川広重, 1797-1858) Tōkaidō Gojūsantsugi (Fifty Three Stations
of Tōkaido 東海道五十三次, 1833), where each one of the cats portrayed is in a
posture that can be linked to the names of the stations of Tōkaidō. It is also to be
added that Kuniyoshi used the image of the cat in order to avoid the prohibition
of representing actors and geishas. With this stratagem the artist managed to

35
It is a rewriting of the famous folk tale Kachi Kachi Mountain whose protagonists are a
raccoon and a rabbit (usagi 兎). Dazai identifies the former with the masculine element, the
latter with the feminine. For the original tale see Orsi 2000, pp. 84-88; pp. 96-97. For the
rewriting see Dazai Osamu, 2008, pp. 219-248.
36
Takada Mamoru 1989, pp. 215-220.
37
Tanuki and kitsune, on the other hand, thanks to their habitat which is far from society, have
preserved their aura of mistery. See Higashi Ajia Kaiigakkai 2009, pp. 189-230.
38
Painter from the Edo period, he was famous for his immense love for felines. He was said
to be painting while having a cat inside his kimono. His house was inhabited by many
animals, often portrayed by his disciples. The fact is confirmed by the numerous paintings
with cats as subject signed by his disciples. See Capriati 2001, pp. 43-86.
 Feline Shadows in the Rising Sun 445

preserve his inspiration from those years of heavy censorship which, starting
from the kabuki world weighed upon many of the Japanese artistic expressions.
The result of this ingenious operation which is partly reminiscent of Chōjū Giga
(Animal Caricatures 鳥獣戯画, end of XII - beginning XIII century) can be
found in many of the artist’s works, such as the famous Neko no Suzumi (Cats
Enjoying Evening Cool 猫の涼み, 1839) where three humanized cats entertain
each other during a cool summer evening.
Two other Japanese painters from a more recent period, Hishida Shunsō
(菱田春草, 1874-1911) and Fujita Tsuguharu (藤田嗣治, 1886-1968) owe a
good deal of their fortune to the feline: the first, in his masterpiece Kaki to Neko
(Khaki Tree and Cat 柿と猫, 1910)39 splendidly portrays the animal’s
undisputed elegance, protagonist already of his most famous work, Kuroki Neko
(The Black Cat 黒き猫, 1910), with the softness of autumnal tones central in his
aesthetic research in Rakuyō (Dead Leaves 落葉, 1909). On the other hand, in
many of Fujita’s works, another cat crazed Japanese artist as was Kuniyoshi,
portrays the feline alongside women’s nudes. Examples are Gonin no Rafu (Five
Nudes 五人の裸婦, 1923) and Tapisurî no rafu (Woman’s Nude with Curtain
タピスリーの裸婦, 1923). As Hayashi observes, in these works there is a
subtle atmosphere of fear linked to the idea of a cat ready at any moment to
violate the young women’s white skin with its claws.
On the grounds of the study conducted so far it is possible to affirm that
in ancient Japan’s collective imagination cats exist in two main categories, one
linked with urban contexts, the other with non-urban environments. While the
“urban” felines, as in the case of Chronicles of the Kanpyō Era, Genji
Monogatari and the anecdote regarding Fujiwara Kiyokado are introduced in
that literary context with the aim of praising the human protagonists with whom
they interact, cats of the second category seem to have a primary role unknown
to their city dwelling fellows. This connotation seems to be the same during the
whole course of Japan’s pre-Meiji cultural history and will not be questioned
until some modern authors’ literary works like Izumi Kyōka’s (泉鏡花, 1873-
1939) Kuroneko (The Black Cat 黒猫, 1895) and Natsume Sōseki’s (夏目漱石,
1867-1916) I Am a Cat (Wagahai wa Neko de aru 吾輩は猫である, 1905). On
the contrary, the two spheres share the supernatural aura the feline is often
invested with: from the traveller of dreams portrayed by Murasaki Shikibu’s
paintbrush, the cat goes through countless transformations where it is possible to
find both comic and horror elements – nonetheless packed with sensuousness
and psychological depth – which seem to characterize its image independently
from the context.

39
The work, a typical example of nihonga (Japanese painting 日本画), is considered by
Japanese authorities “important cultural heritage” (kokuhō 国宝).
446 MING QING STUDIES 2013

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