Japanese railway cat elevated to goddess
T OK YO • Tama the station master, Japan’s feline star of a struggling local railway, was mourned by company officials and fans and elevated into a goddess at a funeral Sunday.
The calico cat was appointed station master at the Kishi station in Japan in 2007. Donning her custom-made stationmaster’s cap, Tama sat at the ticket gate welcoming and seeing off passengers. The cat quickly attracted tourists and became world-famous, contributing to the railway and local economy.
Tama, who had turned 16 in April, died of heart failure on June 22. During Sunday’s Shinto-style funeral at the station, Tama became a goddess. The Shinto religion has a variety of gods including animals.
In one of several portraits at the altar, Tama posed in a stationmaster’s hat and dark blue cape. Sake, watermelon, apples, cabbage and other fruits and vegetables were presented to the cat. A stand was heaped with bouquets, canned tuna and other gifts left by thousands of fans who came from around the country.
Wakayama Electric Railway president Mitsunobu Kojima thanked the cat for her achievement, and said Tama will be enshrined at a nearby cat shrine next month.
Before Tama’s arrival, the local Kishigawa Line was near-bankrupt, and the station was unmanned. Kojima said appointing Tama as station master was initially an excuse to keep the cat at the station. “But she was really doing her job,” he said. The rest was a miracle, and his company’s success story also gave hope for dozens of other struggling local train lines, he said.
“Tama-chan really emerged like a saviour, a goddess. It was truly my honour to have been able to work with her,” Kojima said in his speech. During her tenure, Tama contributed an estimated 1.1 billion yen (US$11 million) to the local economy, Kojima said.
Kojima said that when he visited Tama at an animal hospital the day before she died, the cat woke up and reached out to him with her paws, as if asking for a hug, and looked straight into his eyes. He said he told Tama to get well so they can celebrate the cat’s upcoming 10th anniversary as a station master, and said the cat responded with a “meow.”
The cat had climbed the corporate ladder from station master to “ultra-station master” and vice-president of the firm before receiving the additional title Sunday of “honourable eternal station master.” Tama will be succeeded by another calico, Nitama, now an apprentice station master.