The lucky cat, or maneki-neko (招き猫), is a Japanese figure of a seated cat with one paw raised. The name means "beckoning cat." Shops and restaurants in Japan often set one by the entrance to welcome guests and good fortune.
The beckoning paw
The raised paw is not a wave. In Japan people beckon with the palm facing down, folding the fingers back toward themselves, and the cat makes the same gesture. Visitors from abroad may read it as a wave.
Which paw is raised carries meaning, though the details shift with time and place. The Japan National Tourism Organization says a raised left paw welcomes people and a raised right paw attracts wealth. Other accounts put it differently: the left paw for business, the right for the home. Some cats raise both.
The legends of Gotokuji and Imado
Several temples and shrines in Tokyo claim the first lucky cat. The best-known story belongs to Gotokuji, a Buddhist temple in Setagaya. A lord on his way home from falconry was beckoned in by a cat at the temple gate. While he rested inside, a thunderstorm broke and he stayed dry. The lord was Ii Naotaka of the Hikone domain, and with his support the temple was rebuilt in 1633. The cats at Gotokuji raise the right paw and hold no coin.
A second legend comes from Imado in Asakusa. A poor old woman had to give up her cat. It came to her in a dream and told her to make its likeness. She shaped it in Imado ware, the local pottery, sold it at Asakusa Shrine and grew rich.
From Edo to the world
Lucky cat figures go back to the Edo period (1603 to 1868), or shortly before, and they probably first appeared in Edo, today's Tokyo. One common theory traces them to Imado ware dolls sold in Asakusa. In the same era, silkworm farmers bought paintings of cats, believed strong enough to scare off rats and mice.
By the late Edo period city shoppers had taken to the ceramic cats. An 1852 print by Utagawa Hiroshige shows a stall full of them. Those cats wore bells but held no coins. Later the lucky cat spread through Hong Kong and Taiwan into the Chinese-speaking world, and migrants carried it further still.
The koban coin and the colors
Many lucky cats hold a koban, the oval gold coin of Edo-period Japan, as a wish for wealth. The traditional cat is white. Other colors are sold with wishes of their own: pink for love, green for success in study, black to ward off evil and gold for money.
Is the lucky cat Chinese?
The cat is so common in Chinese communities, including American Chinatowns, that it is often taken for Chinese and called a "Chinese lucky cat." In China it is known as zhaocai mao (招财猫), the cat that beckons wealth. Its home is Japan.
Lucky cats at Buddha.store
Our lucky cats come as keychains, pendants and a mini figurine. One keychain comes in a style strung with Five Emperors coins, which our guide to feng shui coins explains.
