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images were not unlike the St. Christopher medallions popular with European drivers or the Virgin Mary of the Highway images found, for example, in Brazil. Many of them showed Mao in the guise of a temple god or guardian spirit and were said to be capable of deflecting evil ( pixie ). 85 Some people preferred pictures of Mao as a young man, or in a PLA uniform; others favored the official portrait of Mao in his later years. Many of the pictures were placed in gold-colored plastic templelike frames or had red tassels or gold ingots dangling from them, thereby combining aspects of the Mao persona with elements of folk culture and religion (see Figure 3).
     

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It was probably no coincidence that the fad for the talismans originated in the South, where traditional beliefs are generally stronger than in the North; and even more interesting is the fact that Mao supposedly first revealed his supernatural powers in Shenzhen, the laboratory of post-Maoist capitalist reforms (see "Hanging Mao"). Indeed, the vitality of the Cult that spread from the South calls into question just how successful the official de-Maoification of the early 1980s had been. As Maurice Meisner commented at the time: "As Mao's successors in Beijing pursue `de-Maoification' in the cities, as they seek to replace the personal authority of Mao with the impersonal bureaucratic authority of an authoritarian state, they must ponder the political implications of the persistence of the cult of Mao among the great majority of the people over whom they rule." 86
An indication of Mao's permanent position in the popular Chinese pantheon came in mid 1995 when it was widely reported that a traditional-style temple devoted to the Chairman had been built in his home province. Mao had literally been enshrined in a temple (the Sanyuansi ) in Leiyang, Hunan Province. Funded by farmers and pilgrims over a number of years the large temple had halls dedicated to China's revolutionary triumvirate of Mao, Zhou and Zhu De. The images, reminiscent of icons found in traditional temples, were the work of a sculptor from the Buddhist complex at Wutaishan. The standing Mao image was said to be some six meters tall and those of the seated Zhou and Zhu were each approximately 4.5m. At the height of its popularity from late 1994 some 40-50 thousand worshippers visited the temple daily. Party authorities closed it in May 1995 on the grounds that it encouraged superstition. 87
Mao:
The Body Corporate
The first Mao Cult reached its apogee during the early years of the Cultural Revolution, when Mao was hailed as "the Great Teacher, Great Leader, Great Commander, and Great Helmsman" 88 and Red Guards swore to sacrifice themselves and, indeed, murder each other to "protect the Chairman." As in the application of the "leader principle" ( Führerprinzip ) in Hitlerian Germany, Mao was cast as "the sole representative of the people on all levels of political and social life. He claimed to embody the total unity of that people, leaving no room for opposition or criticism. All expressions of the national will were to be his. No representation of different groups, interests, and ideas was allowed to exist alongside him. . . ." 89 In the new Mao Cult, the leader again became a vehicle for the will of the people, a symbolic entity who attracted every shade of dissatisfaction and nostalgia that the people experienced as the effects of the economic Reforms swept over the nation. 90
     

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In life, Mao's body had been the incarnation of mass will. His appearancecarefully presented in photographs and on film so as to maintain an idealized imagewas described in hallowed terms. In the Cultural Revolution, Mao was nothing less than the physical representation of Revolution, History, the Fate of China, and the People's Aspirations; 91 he was the culmination of thousands of years of Chinese civilization, the embodiment of China itself.
In the past, people used Mao's image (the Mao badge and even