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| | From:  Mousey2240 (Original Message) | Sent: 2/25/2007 12:07 AM |
| History Maneki Neko is a popular folk symbol with plenty of mythology behind it, but almost no historical record exists of the true origins of Lucky Cat-probably because the cat statuettes were never considered high art and were therefore overlooked by historians. Maneki Neko's business-drawing reputation may come from the superstition that if a cat washes its face, a guest will arrive. This superstition has a couple of possible foundations in fact. the first is that if a cat feels nervous or uncertain, it often will groom itself-so a cat who sees strangers approaching may wash its face. And since cats spend a significant portion of their waking hours absorbed in fussinf over their fur, it's a safe bet that at some point a visitor will appear soon after a cat has been grooming itself. It's also possible that the way in which cats wash themselves inspired the superstition. Anyone who's seen a cat washing its face knows the cat will wet its paw and rub it against the sides of its face. This motion could, with a little imagination, be interpreted as the palm-down beckoning gesture customary in Asia. It is difficult to say precisely when Lucky Cat figurines became fasionable. Several museum exhibition catalogs date examples of the statues as early as the eighteenth century. A different "lucky cat" figurine-Marujimeneko, a mother cat who carried a kitten on her back-enjoyed a swell of popularity in the nineteenth century, but never achieved the pervasive and enduring status of the Lucky Cat himself. Mousey Tip : Left paw raised: invites visitors or in business, customers
Right paw raised: invites money and good fortune
Both paws raised: protects home or business
White neko: stands for goodness and purity
Black neko: wards off evil (growl, hissss!)
Tri-color or calico: luck, luck, luck (ask Katbeary about that...)
Pink or red neko: brings love and happiness (purrrs!)
Gold neko: invites wealth and prosperity
Neko with coin in paw: invites financial gain (hear that, day traders?)
Neko with fish in paw: another invitation to prosperity  The best estimate is that Maneki Neko first began to appear widely during the late Edo period, sometime in the mid-nineteenth century. It was at this time that the cat was used as a lucky talisman to beckon customers to brothels (just as the prostitutes often advertised themselves by sitting in the brothels' screened front porches, calling and beckoning to potential clients). Reinforcing this connectin is the mid-nineteenth-century slang term for prostitute: neko (cat). some carved wooden signs, or kanban [beckoning sign] genre, whose other popular symbols included a beckoning Tanuki [the "raccoon dog" of folklore], or Okame, the Goddess of Mirth.)  The Pleasure Quarters of the Edo Period were glamorous centers of art and entertainment, and life within them was not seen as shameful or disreputable. In fact, top courtesans, or tayu, were icons of beauty and femininity the way movie stars are today; they lived lives of wealth and celebrity, surrounded by servants and luxury. People even collected their portraits, which were often created by well-known artists such as Hiroshige. Edo Beauty 2 By Hiroshige A major reason the Beckoning Cat's popularity spread beyond the Pleasure Quarters was probably a late-nineteenth-century ban by the Japanese government on the rural fold tradition of phallic worship, in which farmers honored replica phalluses in rituals meant to ensure good crops. This was also a tradition in many brothels, where a shelf called an engi-dana near the entrance displayed lucky talismans (including wooden, bamboo, papier-mache, or clay phallic images) to which the brothel owner and prostitutes prayed in hopes of good business that day. |
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| Luck This custom was not especially popular with authorities during the samurai-dominated Edo period-some commentators of the time decried such "low" traditions and would have liked to see them replaced with the more refined mores and customs of bushido, or samurai-class culture-but it was tolerated. By the time the Meiji government took power in 1868, however, Japan's contact with Western nations had increased dramatically, and this tolerance was at an end. American commodore Matthew Perry, who landed in Japan in 1854, had persuaded the country's government to end its 250 years of isolationism, in part by demonstrating the implied threat of the United States' superior military. Japan was forced to sign an unequal trade treaty with the United States, and it later signed similarly unfavorable treaties with Great Britain, Russia, France, and the Netherlands. the influx of foreign currency destabilized Japan and contributed to the fall of the shogunate.  Japanese samurai in armor, 1860s. Photograph by Felice Beato in the aftermath of these events, the new Meiji regime was intent on restoring Japan to glory, which it saw required transforming the country from an isolated feudal, agrarian society into a global military and economic power. The government was thus very concerned with presenting Japan as a modernized country, and the idea that Westerners might happen upon remnants of primitive phallic worship was a factor in the government's 1872 ban on the manufacture, sale, or display of the phallus statuettes. Health This seems to have provided exactly the sort of lucky break the Lucky Cat needed. Maneki Neko became the preferred legan substitute for the phallic images. (Though scholar Shoichi Inoue makes note of a Maneki Neko statuette created with a secret compartment in which the offending phallus could be hidden.) Soon Maneki Neko's appeal was too great to be contained within the confines of one industry-or even one country. Lucky Cat began to appear in bars, restaurants, and then homes, and by the turn of the twentieth century was being mass-produced in many areas of Japan. But that was only the beginning. Today, Lucky Cat figurines are made across Asia and sold around the world. Love |
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