The most famous cat deities include “Bastet” in Egyptian mythology, but there are also cat deities in Japan, albeit fewer in number. Today we send you a story about a cat worshipped as a god from Tokushima City in western Japan.
In the past, there was a temple called Kongōkō-ji in the area called MukouTerayama, and this area was called Mt.Mukouji because there was a mountain facing the temple. (Today, only the ruins of Kongōkō-ji Temple remain.)
This area of MukouTerayama has now been neatly developed into the Tokushima Prefecture Cultural Forest Comprehensive Park, where the Tokushima Prefectural Library, art galleries, museums and a beautiful park surrounded by greenery provide a recreational space for citizens.
Incidentally, if you follow the south-west direction from this Mukouji mountain, you will come to a mountain pass called ‘Azuri-Goe（Azuri-Pass）’.
There is an anecdote that at the end of the Heian period (794-1185), during the Jishou/Juei War (the so-called Genpei War), Minamoto no Yoshitsune, who was on his way to attack Yashima, had to cross this pass with great difficulty. (Azuru = to struggle in the Tokushima dialect).
In a corner of this Mukouji mountain (Cultural Forest General Park) sits a shrine with a rather unique character.
The shrine is named Oji Shrine because it enshrines “Amatsu-hikone-no-mikoto”, the son of “Amaterasu Omikami”, the supreme deity in the Japanese Shinto religion（Oji=Prince）. And at the same time, he was venerated as the local “根子-神 / Neko-Gami (indigenous-deity)”.
What makes it unique is that the word ‘根子 / Neko’, which denotes this indigenous status, has somehow been mixed up with the animal ‘猫 / Cat / Neko’ and has become an object of belief.
Image courtesy of Ms Nakamori Ayumi
The shrine’s pavilions and offices are crammed with papier-mâché cats and beckoning cats, which are a delight to the eyes of visitors. (There also seem to be many real cats strolling leisurely around the shrine grounds.)
The small papier-mâché cats in front of the altar and the large papier-mâché cats flanking it make people smile just by looking at them.
Image courtesy of Ms Nakamori Ayumi
I mentioned the ‘mixing of 根子 and 猫’ as the reason for the shrine being considered a cat shrine, but there is actually one other piece of folklore related to the founding of the shrine. This is probably the original history, but it is not a very pleasant story…
It is said to have occurred in the early Edo period, around the time of Jokyo. A village headman in Kamo borrowed money from his own land, using it as collateral, in order to save his village, which was suffering from famine at the time.
The village is restored, crops are grown and the village headman is able to pay back the full amount to the lender, Nogami Sanzaemon, within the deadline.
However, the village headman dies suddenly and does not receive the certificate of full payment, which he was supposed to receive later.
The headman’s wife, Omatsu, urges Sanzaemon to issue the deed, but Sanzaemon refuses and takes away five plots of land as collateral, claiming he has not received the money.
Omatsu appealed to the court, but the judge, who had received a bribe from Sanzaemon, dismissed the case.
The end of the matter was too inexcusable. On his deathbed, Omatsu asked his cat Tama, who had always been by his side, to clear a grudge for this incident.
As time passed, Tama the cat also left this world. From this time onwards, Nogami Sanzaemon and the judges and officials involved in the trial began to be visited by calamities one after another, and eventually they all died out.
Here, the clan finally realises the gravity of the situation. The case is re-examined by Hasegawa Magistrate, a retainer in the service of the lord, and the innocence of the headman of Kamo and his wife, Omatsu, is discovered.
In mourning for Omatsu’s regrettable death, he arranged for her and the spirit of Tama, her emotional support, to be enshrined at the Oji Shrine…
‘Omatsu daimyojin’, ‘Otama daimyojin’. （daimyojin=Another name for God.）
From then on, the spirits of Omatsu and Tama settled in this shrine. Since then, no more curses have appeared. Over time, their reputation as ‘wish-granting cat gods’ spread…
The details of the outrageous incident and the ruthlessness of the aftermath are chilling, but it was only in the old days that the selfishness of the powerful could prevail (or perhaps it’s the same today, just from a different perspective, less obvious…).
Anyway, I’m glad their spirits are at peace.
Image courtesy of Ms Nakamori Ayumi
The Oji Shrine is a shrine so full of emotion and loved by the citizens that it is now part of the “Cultural Forest General Park”.
The ‘self-possessed and uninhibited’ character often referred to as the cat’s seems to be seen in the expressions of the doll cats that fill the shrine grounds, which makes you laugh uncontrollably.
If you have the chance, why not pay a visit? You will be greeted by smiling, or poker face, happy cats…
