In Japan, from old times, cats were seen as possessing supernatural abilities, and there are legends such as "one must not let a cat get near a corpse" and "when a cat leaps over a coffin, the corpse inside the coffin will wake up."
There is also the theory that the legend of kappa making humans drown and taking their butts (eating their innards from their butts) was born as a result of the influence of this kasha [REF].