A lavish funeral has been held for a Japanese cat who became an worldwide star when she was made a station master in western Japan.
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Before long, visitors flocked to the station to see the former stray – a custom-made stationmaster’s cap perched on her head – welcome and see off passengers, giving a desperately needed boost to the sleepy, and heavily indebted, Kishigawa line.
On Monday, Tama, the female tortoiseshell cat stationmaster at Japan’s Kishi Station since 2007, died of suspected acute heart failure. At Sunday’s Shinto-style funeral at the station, Tama was made a goddess.
The calico feline was credited with bringing in so much revenue from tourists and merchandise that she single-handedly saved the failing Kishigawa Line of the Wakayama Electric Railway, which lost its last human employee in 2006.
Kojima said appointing Tama as stationmaster was initially an excuse to keep the cat at the station.
The overall “Tama effect” on the local economy has been estimated at 1.1bn yen ($8.9m).
He said: ‘Tama-chan really emerged like a savior, a goddess.
“It was truly my honour to have been able to work with her”.
He said he told Tama to get well so they could celebrate the cat’s upcoming tenth anniversary as a stationmaster, and said she responded with a “meow”.
The governor of Wakayama Prefecture, Yoshinobu Nisaka, said it was important the practice of using feline staff at the railway station was maintained. “I express my deep sorrow and great gratitude”, he said.
People pray in front of an altar especially set up for a funeral of Tama, a cat stationmaster, in Kinokawa City, Wakayama Prefecture, western Japan, Sunday, June 28, 2015.
She was made vice president of the company, before receiving the title of ‘honourable eternal stationmaster’.
He said he had visited the cat in hospital the day before she died, and she had reached out for a hug.
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Another cat has become an apprentice stationmaster following Tama’s death from heart failure on June 22.
