Kasha, The Fire-Cart Wielding, Corpse-Stealing Cats Of Japan
Wickedness in this life is not always punished in the next but, when it is, the Japanese have no mercy in describing how this Yokai deals with its victims.
This week, fluttering down like cherry blossoms from the highest ramparts of the Library of Found Things, comes the story of the Kasha. Enforcers of Shinto morality and cats not to be messed with.
The mountains looked down on ancient Ōmura with its castles of swooping roofs and stone buildings whose pieces had been laid by honest hands in more honest times.
There was a Governor of this province who took it upon himself to travel throughout the lands in order to better understand his people. He did so with a small retinue of wise men who respected the changing whims of both people and Nature herself.
One afternoon, the Governor and his retinue were travelling not far from the craggy Bizen coast, when they heard a peal of thunder high in the sky ahead of them. The retinue cowered as there emerged from the darkening firmament a thick ball of cloud, distinct from the rest. It was black and angry and it alone thundered and, when it drew closer still, they heard the most terrifying, tortured shriek coming from the heart of it.
The Governor watched and he felt the tragedy of that shriek, he understood its pain and he couldn’t help but be affected by it. As it drew nearer still he saw that the moving cloud revealed something pink and slim as it morphed into shape. It was a hand, then a leg, then the foot of a woman poking out from the dark whorls.
The shriek gave way to the plucked strings of the shamizen. Deep and resonant notes triggered swirls in the cloud, percussive claps punctuated the melancholic song and the Governor and his retinue swore they could hear the clipping sounds of a Bunraku puppet, the rustling of its costume beneath the translucent horror of the stormcloud, and an inhuman laugh whose mirth drove a cold stake of fear into their hearts.
The Governor ordered his retinue to take ropes and anything else they could find to attach to the cloud and bring it down to save that poor woman from floating away. They managed to hook the cloud - through magical means it is not your place to know - and they brought it down to earth where they realised that, at the heart of the raging cloud, was an old woman.
The Governor ordered them all to disperse in separate directions, to travel to separate nearby villages, to ask if anybody knew this poor unfortunate woman they had found in this most mysterious of traps. They returned not long afterwards with news that the woman was well-known throughout the province and she was not well-liked.
The woman was apparently the most miserly, stingy and greedy woman anybody had ever known. Evidently, so despised was the woman that the people whom the Governor’s retinue asked were devastated to hear that she had returned!
They told the retinue that the woman had disappeared one night long ago. She had hobbled out of her house, as was her habit, down the cobblestones of her garden to the outhouse not even the moonlight wished to touch. Those who saw the event said they heard the sound of a cat screaming and they saw a huge ball of fire come hurtling down from the roof of the old woman’s house and a horrifying creature snatched her up and put her into a cart it was pulling, which was also burning with a ferocious fire.
The people of the province couldn’t have been happier at the news.
They called the fearsome creature the Kasha, a feline Yokai who stole the wicked elderly and corpses and had their way with them. The people of the province said that the Kasha had probably given up the corpse because it was finished playing with it but they recommended performing the correct funeral rites anyway, just in case the Kasha fancied whisking away someone else.
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YES! Sadistic death-kitties with a penchant for making puppets out of arseholes! I bloody LOVE Japanese Culture!
This story comes directly from the "Shin Chomonjū" or "New Collection of Heard Things," which is a Japanese anthology of stories compiled during the late Edo period (1603–1868).
The collection of stories discusses supernatural phenomena, moral lessons and historical events. Most interestingly however, it talks about the Yokai.
Yokai are what could be called Spiritual Enforcers for the Shinto religion. Not just Shinto, they appear elsewhere, but we’re looking at the Shinto version here.
These ‘enforcers’ ensured that people were living in accordance with nature and the moral principals espoused by Shinto, namely not polluting, not being greedy, not being selfish, and not being disrespectful to others including Nature itself.
You might call them the ‘Arsehole Avengers’ but that might lead to some confusion.
What’s probably most important to understand is that the Yokai are supernatural beings who sometimes mess with humans for the fun of it but, a lot of the time, they only mess with the humans who deserved it, as in the case of the stingy old woman in the story above.
And by ‘mess with’ I mean “usually bring them or their corpses down to a Shinto version of Hell for eternal punishment”.
In the case of the Kasha, this would take place at a funeral or when someone is close to death. The Kasha would come down in a ball of clouds and thunder and snatch away the corpse. They would appear out of the cloud as bipedal beings with feline features, pulling along a cart on fire. Then they would either take them to Hell for punishment or they would … play with them. There are stories of the Kasha taking corpses and making their own Bunraku - or puppet plays - with them for their own enjoyment.
Now, given what you know about the Kasha, it might not surprise you to learn that these vengeful spirits are also connected with simple house-cats.
It was said that, as a cat aged, its tail grew longer. As the tail grew longer, the cat would understand magic more and more until, eventually, it would become a Kasha.
Now, as mentioned earlier, the name refers to a ‘fire-cart from hell’ and the connection with cats came later. According to Hiroko Yoda, famous author of Yokai Attack!, nobody knows how or why the Kasha became associated with this fire-cart but the writer also pointed out that the term Akaneko - meaning red cat - was Japanese slang for fire because a cat’s tongue is red and it looks like a flickering flame. Eventually this came to be associated with the ‘fire-cart from hell’ and the feline model stuck.
If any of you have ever lived with a cat (I won’t say “owned” a cat because you know that’s impossible) then you know how they can go from purring, adorableness, to claw-spinning balls of ferocity just like a fire-cart from Hell!
So, next time you’re looking at your feline friend, maybe give a thought to the Kasha and remember to be generous and kind, especially with regards to Nature.