Imado Shrine: Beckoning Cats and Happy Marriages

Our original destination, the fourth stop on our shichifukujin pilgrimage, was Imado Shrine.  The lucky god with the cone-shaped head, Fukurokuju, is enshrined here.  He is the god of happiness, wealth, and longevity.  But Imado Shrine is most famous as a legendary birthplace of  Manekineko, the beckoning good fortune cat, one of the most treasured good luck items in Japan.

Manekineko is the subject of a number of legends. Here are three of the most popular:

The Temple Cat: A wealthy feudal lord taking shelter under a tree near Gotoku-ji temple (in Western Tokyo) during a thunderstorm saw the temple priest's cat beckoning to him and followed.  A moment later the tree was struck by lightning. The wealthy man became friends with the poor priest and the temple became prosperous. When the cat died, the first Manekineko was made in his honor.

The Courtesan: A courtesan named Usugumo, living in Yoshiwara, in eastern Tokyo, kept a cat, much beloved by her. One night the cat began tugging at her kimono. No matter what she did, the cat persisted. The owner of the brothel saw this, and believing the cat bewitched, cut its head off. The cat's head then flew to the ceiling where it killed a snake, ready at any moment to strike. Usugumo was devastated by the death of her companion. To cheer her up, one of her customers made her a wooden likeness of her cat as a gift.  (I don't know about you, but seeing my cat's decapitated head fly to the ceiling would have given me a heart attack.)

The Old Woman: An old woman living in Imado (eastern Tokyo) was forced to sell her cat due to extreme poverty. Afterwards the cat appeared to her in a dream and told her to make its image in clay. She did as instructed, and then sold the statue. She then made more, and people continued to buy them. They were so popular she soon became prosperous and wealthy.  (This is the shrine we visited and statue makers continue to prosper today thanks mainly to Shinagawa-san whose cat statue collection rivals my Peko-chan collection.)

Right paws raised mean "bring money in".  The male cat has black spots.

Thousands of prayers for love and marriage

The small wooden plaques pictured above are called ema. Shinto worshippers write their prayers or wishes on these plaques and then hang them at the shrine.  In ancient times people would donate horses to the shrines for good favor, over time this custom was transformed to a wooden plaque with a picture of a horse, and later still to the various wooden plaques sold today for the same purpose.  Sales of ema help support the shrine.  Most ema I've seen cost 500 yen, or about $6 these days.