Japan mourns passing of cat stationmaster Tama who became a goddess at her funeral
During her tenure, Tama had contributed an estimated 1.1 billion yen (HK$68.8 million) to the local economy.
Tama the stationmaster, Japan's feline star of a struggling local railway, was mourned by company officials and fans and elevated into a goddess at a funeral.
The calico cat was appointed stationmaster at the Kishi station in western Japan in 2007. In her custom-made stationmaster's cap and a jacket, Tama quietly sat at the ticket gate welcoming and seeing off passengers. The cat quickly attracted tourists and became world-famous before dying of heart failure on June 22.
During yesterday's Shinto-style funeral at the station, Tama became a goddess.
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 as it had lost its last staff. Kojima said appointing Tama as stationmaster was initially an excuse to keep the cat at the station.
"But she was really doing her job," he insisted.
The rest was a miracle, and his company's success story also gave hope for dozens of other struggling tiny local train lines.
"Tama-chan really emerged like a saviour, a goddess," Kojima said. "It was truly my honour to have been able to work with her."
During her tenure, Tama had contributed an estimated 1.1 billion yen (HK$68.8 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 could celebrate the cat's upcoming 10th anniversary as a stationmaster, and said the cat responded with a "meow".
Tama had climbed the corporate ladder from stationmaster to "ultra-stationmaster" and vice president of the company before receiving the additional title Sunday of "honourable eternal stationmaster".
