Nekosho (Shimane)

Nekosho ("cat goblin") is a mountain-dwelling, enlarged wildcat entity, positioned as a montane variant of the nekomata and grouped with mountain dogs, wolves, and foxes among mountain-beast entities. The old layer comes from Tsurezuregusa, chapter 89 (early 14th century): "in the deep mountains there is a thing called nekomata that devours people." While the nekomata was fixed in Edo lore as an aged household cat, mountain villages of the Chugoku and Shikoku ranges and of Izumo and Iwami distinguished a montane "Nekosho," "yamaneko," or "yama no neko" encountered on deep passes and old roads. Toriyama Sekien's Gazu Hyakki Yagyo, yo no maki (1776) connects pictorially with this lineage. Yanagita Kunio's Tono Monogatari Shui and other regional folklore note cases. Murakami Kenji's Nihon Yokai Daijiten (Kadokawa, 2005) and the International Research Center for Japanese Studies Yokai Folklore Database organize the tradition. In Shimane, fragmentary mountain-road great-cat tales from Matsue and Iwami remain.