What is a bakeneko?
A bakeneko is a Japanese yokai: a cat that has lived a long time, gained supernatural powers, and can take human form, possess people or curse them. Tales from many regions tell of cats licking the oil of paper lanterns, making the dead dance, or dancing with towels on their heads. It is often treated as the same as the nekomata, the cat with a forked tail, and the corpse-stealing kasha is sometimes said to be a cat yokai too.
The Nabeshima Bakeneko Disturbance
The most famous bakeneko tale is the “Nabeshima Bakeneko Disturbance,” set in the Nabeshima household of the Saga domain. In the best-known version, a retainer who played Go with the lord angered him and was cut down, and his mother took her own life in despair. Her pet cat licked her blood, became a bakeneko, took the form of the lord’s favorite concubine and tormented him, until a loyal retainer destroyed it.
The story is thought to be a fiction based on the history of the Saga domain, in which real power passed from the Ryuzoji family to the Nabeshima family. It became a sensation in storytelling and kabuki in the late Edo period. Shurinji Temple in Shiroishi, Saga Prefecture, has a “cat mound” said to be a memorial to the bakeneko.
Bakeneko legends around Japan
The “Arima Cat Disturbance,” set in the Arima household of the Kurume domain, and “The Cat of Okazaki,” set at Okazaki on the Tokaido road, are counted with it as the three great bakeneko tales. Ukiyo-e artists such as Utagawa Kuniyoshi drew giant monster cats and cats dancing with towels on their heads, and the bakeneko was a familiar star of ghost stories for the people of Edo.
At the same time, cats have long been loved as the luck-bringing maneki-neko. Living close to people yet glowing-eyed at night and vanishing at will, cats have always been thought to have mysterious powers.
