二 · Clay — Tokoname, Aichi

Maneki-neko

It isn't waving hello. It is calling you in.

The paw is the whole object. To a Western eye the cat is waving — hand up, hello. In Japan you beckon someone with the hand held up, palm down, folding the fingers down and back. Maneki-neko means the beckoning cat, and it is asking you to come inside.

The story told most often belongs to Gōtoku-ji, a small temple in what is now Setagaya, in Tokyo. Early in the Edo period a lord, Ii Naotaka, was riding home from hawking when a cat at the temple gate seemed to call him in. He went. Then the sky broke into a violent thunderstorm, and he sat it out under the temple roof, thanking the priest for his kindness.

Film · 0:47It isn't waving hello

Read the narration

You've seen this cat in a thousand restaurants. It isn't waving hello. In Japan, you call someone over with your palm down, fingers folding. The cat is saying: come in. Almost four hundred years ago, a lord was riding home from a hawking trip, past a poor little temple outside Edo. At the gate, a cat seemed to call him in. He went. Then the sky broke open in a violent storm. He waited it out under the temple roof, and made it his family's temple. A poor temple prospered, because of a cat. Which paw it raises matters. The left calls in people. The right calls in money. The round-eyed cat you know comes from Tokoname, a pottery town that started making them in the late nineteen-thirties. If you'd like one of your own, Maison Homura will go and look for it. So it isn't waving hello. It's asking you in.

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Maneki-neko — at the workshop — At the workshop

How it is made

原型Gengata
One cat is modelled by hand. Every cat after it comes from this one.
鋳込みIkomi
Liquid clay is poured into a plaster mould; what sets against the plaster becomes the cat.
焼成Shōsei
Dried, taken out of the mould and fired.
絵付けEtsuke
Black and orange patches, the red collar, the gold coin — painted by hand.

He made it his family's temple, and a poor temple became a prosperous one. The cat that had stood at the gate became the reason. Other places tell their own version — Jishō-in in Shinjuku, and Imado in Asakusa, where clay cats were sold to people visiting the shrines. The figurine itself first turns up in the records in 1852, the year Hiroshige drew one on sale at Sensō-ji.

Which paw is raised matters. A left paw calls in people — customers, company, a full shop. A right paw calls in money. A shop counter usually wants the left.

The round-eyed, big-eared cat most people picture is from Tokoname, the red-clay town in the case just before this one. Its potters turned to cats in the late 1930s, when the older trade was failing, and by 1950 the town was Japan's main maker. Calico white with black and orange patches, a red collar and bell, and in the other paw a koban — an oval gold coin of the Edo period — held against the chest.

Maneki-neko — from the right — From the right

Walk around it

Notes

The gesture: Palm down, fingers folding: come in
Left paw: Calls in people
Right paw: Calls in money
This shape: Tokoname — the main maker by 1950

About the place

A peninsula town built on iron-red clay, and the oldest of the Six Ancient Kilns. At its height in the twelfth century there were some three thousand kilns on these hills turning out storage jars, and the jars went everywhere the coastal boats went — Tokoname pots have been dug up the length of Japan.

Tokoname · Unglazed red stoneware →Ask us to find one →The Middle and the Snow Coast · By region →