Cats.
Across the globe and throughout human history, they’ve been worshipped, revered, feared,
villainized, domesticated, and cuddled.
On the one hand they’re fluffy, floofy purring balls of cuteness but they also act like soul-stealing
demons.
In Japanese folklore, they mean that literally.
Japan’s culture is rich in feline imagery and folklore.
Most often seen as protectors, defending the home from everything from mice to bad spirits,
the cat is generally revered.
Yet it is also feared.
Believed to be in possession of powerful paranormal abilities, they bring curses as quickly as
luck.
Then there’s the Kasha, one of Japan’s feline yōkai and a literal hellcat.
This massive, snarling monster arrives in the midst of raging thunder clouds on a mysterious
floating fireball, hell-bent on stealing your corpse from the arms of your loved ones and
dragging it to the underworld.
I mean…we all know cats can be vicious, but this seems kind of extreme.
Did I mention Kasha are also depicted as a flaming chariot that transports groups of
souls to be tortured in the afterlife?
So is it a hellcat or a hellcart?!
Actually, it’s both.
[Monstrum intro.]
Japanese Yōkai are loosely defined as monsters, although any strange or supernatural creature
fits the bill.
Kasha, the cat demons associated with transporting corpses to their eternal damnation are certainly
yokai.
And yet, one of the things that makes the Kasha so strange is its very dubious origins.
The kanji for Kasha translates to “Fire Cart” which is why this giant evil cat was
originally depicted as a literal flaming cart.
The “hell cart” arose in the Kamakura period in Japan, a time of great change that
included the development of several new schools of Buddhism.
Many members of the faith saw the period as the “end of times” [mappō].
They began producing “hell scrolls” (jigoku-zoshi)—paintings, often accompanied by text, graphically depicting
the souls of sinners being tortured in various versions of hell for all eternity.
The illustrations were meant to disgust and horrify people enough that they would act
with kindness and humility while they were alive, so they portrayed things like giant,
fire-breathing roosters, demons chopping up bodies, and people drowning in a river of
fiery lava.
And some show demons dragging flaming carts full of damned souls from earth to hell—the
“hell cart.”
Beginning in the Edo period, we continue to see images of the flaming cart, but now
without the demon, and it’s coming down from the sky during a storm.
Legend had it that if you heard thunder during a funeral, the Kasha hell cart was coming.
Over time, the storm imagery became entwined with the Kasha, so much so that by the late
17th century, one book (Kii-zodanshu) included a tale about the flaming cart alongside an
illustration of the Shinto deity of thunder and lightning, Raijin riding inside
it.
So that’s how the storm imagery joined our understanding of the creature, but how we
got from a flaming storm cart to a cat is more ambiguous.
I mean, Raijin is certainly frightening in the image, but not really feline in appearance.
The lore and art continued to evolve, the updated forms depicted Kasha as hairy, catlike
creatures with long, wing-like ears, smooth stomachs, and large claws.
It was said that during a funeral procession, the Kasha would suddenly appear, leap upon
the coffin, tear open the lid, and drag the corpse with it to hell.
Kasha are said to have the power to control the body of a corpse, and even to wake the
dead.
One Kasha story first published in 1837, shows how the seemingly disparate supernatural elements
of the Kasha could be collected into one spooky story.
According to the legend, there lies a great temple in the Echigo province full of old
documents and wondrous treasures.
One of the most prized possessions in its collection is a “hellwagon-repelling”
linen robe.
Dyed with the sap of the clove tree and splattered with bloodstains, it is said to have belonged
to a virtuous Abbot.
Once a simple linen robe, it became a holy relic after the Abbot wore it as he accompanied
a funeral procession through a great snowstorm.
They were halfway to the burial site when black clouds rolled in, making it as dark
as night.
A colossal fireball appeared out of nowhere and floated over to the coffin.
Inside the fireball was a massive, horrifying hellcat with two tails.
Spitting, snarling, and hissing, it clawed at the coffin, trying to get to the body inside.
All of the mourners fled—except the Abbot, who continued his sacred mantras as he lifted
his holy staff high into the air.
He struck the Kasha in the head with all his might, splitting the skull open—spraying
blood everywhere, and splattering his vestment in hellcat gore.
The monster vanished.
Butttt wait, where had the whole cat thing come from in the first place?
I found that question hard to answer in my research, so I reached out for some help from
Hiroko Yoda, author of yokai books including Yokai Attack!
The Japanese Monster Survival Guide.
[Hiroko: Yokai, a product of Japan's polytheistic worldview.
Yokai are personifications of natural phenomena, unexplainable things, or concepts.
The way people see them has changed a lot over the course of time.
Long, long ago, when bad things happened, like getting sick or some kind of misfortune,
people explained it as being caused by some kind of Yokai.
Therefore, people did things to avoid Yokai.
But today, Japan is a modern society, so we treat them as fun characters from folklore.
If you ask me about Kasha, the main part of the story is the fire cart from hell with
the cat essence attached to that as a variation.
I don't know exactly how or why they became attached, but there's an old slang term from
long ago.
. It means red cat.
It's a slang for fire because a cat's tongue is red and it looks like flickering flame.
Fire was a common danger in daily life.
So cats are common and the fires are common and that they could be how Kasha became a
fire cat.]
There is one event we can point to that had a massive impact on how the Kasha was understood
in Japanese culture—the publication of Toriyama Sekien’s iconic 1776 yōkai encyclopedia.
[Hiroko: He created the first encyclopedia of Yokai.
It's called [Kazu Hyakki-yagyou], which I translated as Japan Demon Illustrated.
Before that, Yokai had only appeared on the scrolls with no background.
He made a book and he gave each Yokai background and context.
It's the most important Yokai book.]
This was the first time the yōkai were presented in stand-alone narratives, effectively setting
the stage for them to increase their popularity and solidify their individual characters.
Sekien illustrated the kasha as a cat-demon.
[Hiroko: Sekien doesn't give much story about Kasha, but his illustration is very detailed.
It shows a cat-like creature wreathed in fire, carrying a human body.
What is important to know is that this is only Sekien’s interpretation.
There are many variations in folklore, but broadly speaking, the basic story is this.
Kasha is a Yokai that steals dead bodies from funerals or graveyards.
In some stories, it's the body of a sinner.
Other times, an innocent victim.
It varies from place to place.]
Even in all the beautiful weirdness of yōkai, Kasha are hard to categorize.
They aren’t quite bakéneko, a ‘monster cat’ or ‘goblin cat,’ since the cat
features are secondary to what actually defines this creature—how it carries away corpses.
We can call them yōkai since they are “monsters” but they are really more like demons given
their hellaciousness and the religious implications of their actions.
Cats are ambiguous by nature—they can be quiet and cuddly one moment, stealthy and
deadly the next.
They also toe the line between feral and domestic, making them easy to perceive as borderland
creatures in other ways as well.
In Japanese folklore, cats are respected and often feared.
So the feline characteristics of the Kasha could also be explained by the long history
of cat superstitions in Japan.
[Hiroko: They aren't necessarily, bakeneko, but there are many superstitions about cats
in Japan.
The west has superstitions, too, like black cats being witchy or cats having nine lives
in Japan.
There's a superstition that if a cat leaps over a dead body, that the body will come
back to life.
There are so many sayings related to cats in Japanese.
They are common pets.
You can tie a dog up, but you can't tie up up a cat.
Dogs are pack animals who follow owners' orders to behave, but cats don't.
They have independent spirits.
So when you think about that, you can imagine where the superstitions come from.]
Folklore tradition claims cats can alter their appearance and bewitch humans.
So as the lore of feline yokai like the Kasha developed, people began to be more wary of
household cats.
Some claimed cats would turn into Kasha while in the presence of a dead body—so domestic
cats would be left outside if a death occurred.
Others said that if a cat lived a very long life, it would eventually transform into this
yōkai.
Hiroko told me that in Japan the Kasha is largely unknown outside of folklore specialists,
in part because most funerals today are cremations.
The Kasha can’t steal a body that isn’t there.
But that doesn’t mean they are destined to fade completely into the shadows.
[Hiroko: I grew up with Yokai and I loved Yokai ever since I was child.
They're scary, but not too scary.
That makes them fun.
Now, that I've grown up, I realized that Yokai's ability to characterize things, it's a powerful
tool for people in hard times.
Ambiguous in unknown situations make us nervous.
Naming them and describing them brings them under our control.
Yokai are the faces that help us process laugh and move on.
Like today, for example, we struggle with COVID 19.
We have vaccines and you feel like we are kind of starting to control it.
But in the early month, when it was out of control, there was so much fear all over the
world.
Japanese rediscovered an old drawing of a Yokai from newspaper 240 years ago, that showed
a Yokai called Amabie.
It said, "There will be abundant harvest, but if a plague comes, draw me and show people."
People began sharing the drawings on the social media and it went viral.
Not only in Japan, but all over the world.
Even the Japanese government started using Amabie on posters.
And now there are so many variations.
Some say it's a she, some say she is an angel who cure plague.
There are so many interpretations, but it made people smile and helped people deal with
their fear.
This is the power of Yokai.
Probably, that's how it is with Kasha too.]
Even if they are mainly a form of entertainment today, yōkai have only increased in popularity
over time, and the Kasha is no exception.
The monstrous cat appears in the long-running Kitarō cartoon anime.
And is given this new look in a recent yokai-inspired video game.
Which if I could side eye any harder, I would.
But in many ways that’s the beauty of monsters.
One person’s hell cart is another person’s hell cat—and I think that makes them even
more amazing.
Before you go - if you’re looking for a fun show for the budding young scientists
in your lives, we think you would love MEGAWOW on the PBS Kids Youtube Channel!
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