What is This? 9

Spotted: Japanese tombs decorated with 2-D black and white cats with glass marble eyes. New lawn decorations, or perhaps an extension of the Japanese obsession with cuteness into the afterlife? Egyptian guardians of the afterlife? What is this??


Answer: I'm actually still not quite sure what these flat cats are for, but I imagine it's to keep other cats away from these tombs, which happen to be the tombs of the Nobunaga clan. That's right, the Oda Nobunaga clan that unified much of Japan during the Warring States Period. I found it amusing that the Japanese would find it less offensive to have these flat cats than a real cat on the tomb of one of Japan's most significant historical figures. I happened upon Nobunaga's tomb when I was exploring grounds of Daitokuji, the 700 year old Zen temple next door to my apartment. There was a cemetery attached to one of the sub-temples and on its grounds was the humble tomb of Oda Nobunaga. I was also surprised at its simplicity when compared with Ieyasu Tokugawa's (the final unifier of Japan) tomb in Nikko. The cemetery was largely devoid of greenery, but the plots had unusual colored gravel or sand surrounding the tombstones. A patchwork of arid colors graced the grounds of this cemetery to create a beautiful scene unknown in America's largely grassy graveyards.


Sand and gravel in cemetery plots