Maneki-neko: the beckoning cat of Japanese temples and shops
Origins of the maneki-neko, Japan's cat with a raised paw: the legends of Gōtoku-ji and Imado, the meaning of each paw and the ceramics of Tokoname.
Sitting with one paw raised beside its face, the maneki-neko greets customers in restaurants, shops and offices across Japan and in many Asian communities around the world. Its name literally means “inviting cat” or “beckoning cat”. The gesture, which to Western eyes may look like a wave, corresponds in Japan to the movement used to invite someone closer, with the palm facing forward and the hand bending downwards.
Legends of origin
Several legends circulate about the origins of the maneki-neko, almost all set in the Edo period. The best known concerns the temple of Gōtoku-ji in Tokyo's Setagaya district. It is said that a feudal lord, caught in a storm, saw the temple cat beckoning to him with its paw; drawing closer, he escaped a danger and out of gratitude became the temple's patron. Tradition identifies this lord with a member of the Ii family, lords of the Hikone domain.
Another story is linked to the Imado shrine in the Asakusa area: a poor old woman, forced to part with her cat, saw it in a dream asking her to model its image in clay. The figurines were a success and the woman escaped poverty. Other cities also claim stories of their own. Rather than fixing a precise date, these legends show that the cat was already associated with good fortune in the urban culture of the nineteenth century.
Paws, colours and coins
The earliest documentary evidence dates from the mid-nineteenth century, when figurines of lucky cats were sold at the temples of Edo, present-day Tokyo. Since then the maneki-neko has acquired certain conventions. According to the most common interpretation, a raised left paw beckons customers and visitors, while the right attracts money and prosperity; there are also figures with both paws raised. The explanations, however, vary from region to region.
The traditional cat is white with black and orange patches, imitating the tricolour cat known as mike-neko, but other colours are also common, and popular culture has given each of them a specific meaning. The cat often wears a collar with a small bell and clutches an oval gold coin of the Edo period, the koban, sometimes inscribed with references to fabulous sums.
From ceramics to the world
Major centres of production have been, and still are, the pottery towns of Tokoname in Aichi Prefecture and Seto. In the twentieth century the maneki-neko spread beyond Japan, reaching Chinatowns all over the world, where it is often mistaken for a Chinese charm. The plastic versions with a battery-powered waving paw are a recent invention, but they have made the cat even more familiar to an international public.
At Gōtoku-ji, thousands of white figurines left by worshippers now form a famous spectacle, drawing visitors from every part of the world. It is an image that sums up the history of the maneki-neko well: a local legend born around a temple and transformed, within two centuries, into a symbol of welcome and prosperity recognised everywhere, from the counters of Tokyo shops to the windows of European restaurants.