? The story of Ke Hsiang is not a well-known tale in Taiwan, in fact, only a few people are aware of it. However, as the scholar of National Taiwan Museum, Zi-Ning Li, pointed out, Ke Hsiang is a historical story about our country, our cultural spirit, and how we believe in life-after-death (11). Ke Hsiang has been called and labeled with several different names throughout history; some people called it “Human Buddha,” some just considered it as “mummy” or “dried-corpse,” other believers view it as “Mr. Lord.” Zi-Ning Li said that this fact of how various people associated one specific statue with different identities is a reflection of how cultural, historical and educational backgrounds shape our cognition toward the world (12). Ke Hsiang is the case that fits the course theme perfectly. It, or you may consider it as He, was, at first, a saint who died and became an icon, then, a statue with mysterious power that motive the believers and the followers to organize a protest against the Japanese colonialists, finally, a weird and special artwork that is exhibited in the national museum. Ke Hsiang was nothing but a normal and mortal man in an ordinary village. What makes him so holy? What makes him different from other peasants in his hometown? What makes him become a cult? Why is it such a myth? As Zi-Ning Li claimed, most of the mummies stay in their tombs in eternal sleep after they become a mummy, unlike Ke Hsiang, who was involved in even more mythical events after death. For the majority, death is an end, yet to Ke Hsiang, death was a start (2). There are many different stories of exactly who Ke Hsiang was before death. The most popular version, as Daily New Taiwan (??????) reported in August, 1912, Ke Hsiang was a bandit who predicted his own date of death and claimed he would mummify and become a god a hundred days after his death. His prophecy came true and scared the people in his village, hence this people placed his dead body (which was already a mummy by then) into the temple of Xuan Wu. Another popular tale claimed that Ke Hsiang was a medicinal herbs collector who risked his life by trying to save the statue of Xuan Wu, the god, from a house on fire. People in the village started to respect and see him as a saint after this. In the end, he sealed his house with woods and mud, and then smoked himself to death. After a hundred days, he mummified. His followers and believers placed the mummy into the temple of Xuan Wu (Wu, Chen & Jian 3.) The third version of Ke Hsiang believed that the mummy is not the body of Ke Hsiang himself, but his younger brother, Ke Qi-Lin. (One interesting fact, Hsiang ?means elephant, Qi-Lin ??is the ancient mythical creature, like dragon.) In this version it stated that Ke Hsiang was a wizard/sorcerer who used the body of his dead brother to create a mummy, made up a story about how his brother became a god, and placed the mummy into the temple of Xuan Wu (Li 7.) One thing that is certain in all these three stories is that Ke Hsiang was placed in the temple of Xuan Wu, and is associated with Taoism, as Xuan Wu is a Taoism god. The interesting fact about these three most popular tales is that we observe how different group of people tried to empower or disempower Ke Hsiang. The first story described him as nothing more than a human (an immoral type of man even, because he was a bandit) who seems to be manipulating the mind of his fellow villagers by dying at the date he himself predicted to make sure people believe the next prophecy of him becoming a god. The second story empowered Ke Hsiang and deified him by portraying him as a decent, faithful and brave man. This version ensured that no one doubt the right of Ke Hsiang becoming a god by giving him the holy qualities and personalities to empower him. The third story is the exact opposite to the second version. In the third version, Ke Hsiang is totally disempowered as he is described as a sorcerer who immorally created a false myth out of his own brother’s corpse, moreover, he even manipulated and tricked his fellow villagers. The truth of Ke Hsiang’s real identity can only remain as a myth due to the lack of authentic sources. However the fact of people believing in the mysterious power of Ke Hsiang as a “god-like” mummy is definite. The well-known Taiwanese anti-Japanese-government rebellion in 1912, “Event of Tu-Ku,” proves the role of Ke Hsiang as an icon in the village. The leader of the rebellion, Huang Zhao, who was a peasant in the village that got persecuted by the Japanese officers, took a statue out of the temple of Xuan Wu, which was the one that Ke Hsiang was in, and moved it to somewhere else to pray that his mother could be cured from illness. After Huang’s mother died, Huang locked himself in a room and claimed that he was doing some serious worshiping inside. His fellow villager considered him as a decent and faithful man. In 1912, mid-May, Huang announced that he