S P O T ／ SPOT-095

Omatsu Gongen-sha (the Cat Shrine)

お松権現社（猫神さん）おまつごんげんしゃ（ねこがみさん）

In the village of Kamo, in coastal Anan, a small Shinto shrine has, over four centuries, absorbed approximately ten thousand maneki-neko statues offered by petitioners praying for victory in legal disputes, court cases, and contests of every kind. Omatsu Gongen-sha is dedicated to a 17th-century village woman named Omatsu, who, according to local legend, attempted to appeal to higher authorities against a corrupt local magistrate, was instead executed for her trouble, and whose pet cat — moved by her death — transformed into a vengeful spirit-cat (bakeneko) and brought ruin to the magistrate's household. The villagers, recognizing both forces, enshrined Omatsu and the cat together as deities of justice and grievance. Today the shrine is the only one in Japan where koma-neko (guardian cats) replace the usual koma-inu (guardian dogs) at the entrance, and where the steps to the inner shrine are lined floor-to-rafters with cat figurines left by petitioners, many of them lawyers, plaintiffs, and gamblers. The story is sad, the iconography is wild, and the cumulative visual impact is unlike anything else in the country.