No.042

Kasha

THE FIERY CORPSE THIEF

For reference: old artToriyama Sekien（1776）
"Kasha" from Gazu Hyakki Yagyo
Public domain (Wikimedia Commons)

Japanese name: 火車（KASHA）
Type: Funeral spirit
Found in: Funeral processions, graveyards, and temples

◆ The legend

A funeral procession is making its way along, or mourners stand in a graveyard, when dark clouds suddenly gather. Wind howls, thunder rolls, and something snatches the body right out of the coffin. Stories like this are told in many parts of Japan, and the culprit is the kasha. Its form is often left vague, but it is frequently said to be an old cat that has turned strange, or what a nekomata becomes, and it has been pictured as a great cat wrapped in flames.

Its roots lie in the Buddhist idea of the kasha, the "fire cart": a blazing cart that comes up from hell when a person who has done much evil is dying, to carry the sinner away. That terrifying image is thought to have merged with an old saying that cats must be kept away from the dead, and together they grew into tales of a yokai that steals bodies. There are also stories of people guarding the dead by laying a blade on top of the coffin, or of a priest driving the kasha off with the power of his prayers.

◆ Stories about this yokai

October 24, 2026Kasha and the "Fire Cart": How a Cart from Hell Became a Corpse-Stealing CatThe kasha is a yokai said to snatch the dead from funeral processions. Its name comes from the burning cart that carries sinners to hell in Buddhist belief. A gentle look at the everyday phrase it left behind, how it came to be a cat, and a folktale in which a cat repays a poor temple.