Lucky Kitty

My mom found this AWESOME website called Canon. It is full of different things, but my favorite is the 3-d paper building section. You can make all kinds of things. I made a maneki neko.

my good luck cat I made for my Japanese themed loft

Here is a little bit about the maneki neko. The maneki neko is thought to bring good luck. He is not waving he is beckoning. Meneki’s beginnings, however, are unclear, and different people tell different stories, or slightly different versions of the same story. Some versions come from China and others from Japan. All of the stories agree on one thing though, this little cat is lucky. ;-)

Here are the three most popular versions of the Maneki Neko.

The Temple Cat
This story tells of a poor priest who lived in poverty, in a run down temple in Tokyo. What little food the priest had, he shared with his cat. One day, during a bad storm, a rich nobleman rushed to take shelter underneath a large, old tree that was growing near to the temple. Through the rain, though, the nobleman saw a cat beckoning him to go into the temple. Fascinated by the strange cat, the nobleman left the shelter of the tree and went to take a closer look at the animal. At that point the tree under which he had been sheltering was struck by lightning. Feeling that he owed his life to the cat, the nobleman was so grateful to it that he befriended the priest and the temple became prosperous. Neither the priest or his cat ever went hungry again.

The Courtesan
In this legend the cat belonged to courtesan, who also lived in a district of Tokyo. The courtesan was called Usugumo and she loved her cat very much. One night Usugumo was about to visit the toilet when her cat stopped her by pulling on the hem of her Kimono. Usugumo tried to chase the cat away, but no matter how hard she tried she found that she could not get it to stop and she became frightened. Seeing all of this, the owner of the brothel, thought that the cat must be bewitched, and he rushed over and cut off its head with his sword. Once severed, the cats head flew up to the toilet ceiling, where a large snake was poised, ready to strike Usugumo. The cat’s head fixed its teeth into the snake and killed it, saving Usugumo’s life. Usugumo was devastated by the loss of her cat, especially under such circumstances, and one of her customers made a wooden likeness of her cat, and presented it to her as a gift - the first Maneki Neko.

The Old Woman
This story is also set in Tokyo, this time in the district of Imado. There was an old woman who had a pet cat. She lived in extreme poverty and finally had to get rid of her companion because she could no longer afford to feed it.
That night her pet appeared to her in a dream and told her to fashion a likeness of it out of clay, telling her it would be sure to bring her luck. The old woman did this and soon sold the figurine. She made more and sold them too. In fact the clay cats became so popular that the old woman soon became wealthy.

Not only are there different stories about the origins of Maneki Neko, there are different opinions about the relevance of which paw is doing the beckoning. Many people believe that the left paw is for wealth and that the right signifies luck. Some people believe it is the other way around, while others believe that the left one is for fortune and the right one is for health.

Modern day Maneki Nekos come in a variety of colors too and different colors are believed to signify different things.