Fetish (religion)

“ The indiscriminate application of the term fetish to objects of all these five classes is highly inconvenient, especially when we come to discuss the question whether fetishism is a primitive form of religion. ”

“ The in-dwelling spirit may be human, as when a fetish is made out of a friend's skull, the spirit in which may even be asked for oracles, like the Head of Bran in Welsh legend.
We have tried to show that the belief in human souls may be, in part at least, based on supernormal phenomena which Materialism disregards. We shall now endeavour to make it probable that Fetishism (the belief in the souls tenanting inanimate objects) may also have sources which perhaps are not normal, or which at all events seemed supernormal to savages. ”

“ FETISHES, CHARMS, AND MAGIC
THE concept of a spirit's entering into an inanimate object, an animal, or a human being, is a very ancient and honorable belief, having prevailed since the beginning of the evolution of religion. This doctrine of spirit possession is nothing more nor less than fetishism. The savage does not necessarily worship the fetish; he very logically worships and reverences the spirit resident therein.
At first, the spirit of a fetish was believed to be the ghost of a dead man; later on, the higher spirits were supposed to reside in fetishes. ”

“ For the African, whose mind has been soaked in Fetish during his early most impressionable years, the voice of Fetish is almost irresistible when affliction comes on him. Sudden dangers or terror he can face with his new religion, because he is not quick at thinking. But give him time to think when under the hand of adversity, and the old explanation that answered it all comes back. I know no more distressing thing than to see an African convert brought face to face with that awful thing we are used to, the problem of an omnipotent God and a suffering world. ”

“ It begins when a savage stumbles on a few natural effects out of the common run of things, which he finds himself able to work by unvarying rule of thumb. He becomes a fetish to himself. Fetishism is the adoration of a visible object supposed to possess active power. A witch is one who professes to work marvels, not through the aid or counsel of the supernatural beings in whom he believes as much as the rest, but by certain occult faculties which he conceives himself to possess. ”

“ The basal step in the development of the fetish is the incorporation of soul-like demoniacal powers in inanimate objects, whether these be objects as they are formed by nature or whether they are artificially constructed. Such objects may result from a deterioration of religious art, but this is by no means the only alternative. In their original forms, they are allied to far more primitive phenomena, such as antedate both religious art and even religion itself, in the true sense of the word. ”

“ A fetish, he tells us, is something tangible and inanimate, which is believed to possess power in itself, and is worshipped for itself alone. Nor can such an object be picked up anywhere at random, as is commonly asserted, and he adds that the belief "is arrived at only after considerable progress has been made in religious ideas, when the older form of religion becomes secondary and owes its existence to the confusion of the tangible with the intangible, of the material with the immaterial ”

“ In the land of Ambamba every one must die once, and when the fetish priest shakes his calabash against a village, all the men and lads whose hour is come fall into a state of lifeless torpidity, from which they generally arise after three days. But if the fetish loves a man he carries him away into the bush and buries him in the fetish house, often for many years. ”

“ All cases of Fetishism, when examined, show that the worship is paid to an intangible power or spirit incorporated in some visible form, and that the fetish is merely the link between the worshipper and the object of his worship. Any definition therefore which takes no account of the spiritual force behind the material object is seen to be incomplete and superficial, as it ignores the essential conception of the worship. ”

“ It may act by the will or force of its own power or spirit, or by force of a foreign power entering it or acting on it from without, and the material object and the power or spirit may be dissociated. It is worshipped, prayed to, sacrificed to, talked with, and petted or ill-treated with regard to its past or future behaviour. In its most characteristic form a fetish must be consecrated by a priest.
1. A fetish may be any object whatsoever, but there is always a reason for its choice. ”

“ Notwithstanding that the cult of fetishism is not, strictly speaking, a department of religious activity, a point exists at which the fetish begins to evolve into a god. This happens when the object survives the test of experience and achieves a more than personal or {89} tribal popularity. ”

“ The animistic belief that certain material objects can be charged with a divine potency or spirit gives rise to fetishism, a term which properly denotes the worshipful or superstitious use of objects made by art and invested with mysterious power, so as to be used like amulets for Fetishism. the purposes of protective magic or for higher purposes of communion with the divinity. From the earliest discoverable period down to the present day fetishism has been a powerful factor in the religion of the Graeco-Roman world. ”

“ No one now any longer holds that a fetish is regarded, by believers in fetish, as a material object and nothing more: everyone recognises that the material object to which the term is applied is regarded as the habitation of a spiritual being. The material object in question is to the fetish what the idol of a god is to a god. If the material object, through which, or in which, the fetish-spirit manifests itself, bears no resemblance to human form, neither do the earliest stocks or blocks in which gods manifest themselves bear any resemblance to human form. ”

“ And so the fetish cult eventually incorporated all of the primitive ideas of ghosts, souls, spirits, and demon possession.
1. BELIEF IN FETISHES Primitive man always wanted to make anything extraordinary into a fetish; chance therefore gave origin to many. A man is sick, something happens, and he gets well. ”

“ Certainly the lower forms of idolatry present the aspect of fetishism, but the true fetish is not shaped to resemble the spirit it represents, and the true idol is only the symbol, not the vessel, vehicle, or instrument of deity. At the same time, an image may be worshipped as a fetish, and regarded as a material body provided for a spirit ”

“ While the conception of the fetish as the vehicle of communication between spirit and worshipper raises fetishism to a higher plane in religious evolution, the conception of the fetish as an instrument by which the spirit acts lowers it to a stage which is not necessarily religious at all, to a stage where the fetish is often regarded merely in the light of a charm or an amulet. ”

“ No confession of sin, because the Fetish believer does not hold he lives in a state of sin, but that it is a thing he can commit now and again if he is fool enough. Sin to him not being what it is to us, a vile treason against a loving Father, but a very ill-advised act against powerful, nasty-tempered spirits. Herein you see lies one difference between the Christian and the Fetish view,—a fundamental one, that must be borne in mind. ”

“ But how could any such fear have led to the worship of Fetishes? How could a Savage, seized with terror, ever have believed that an onion, a stone, a flower, water, a tree, a mouse, a cat, &. could be his protector and secure him against all that he apprehended? I know that fear does not reason, but it is not to be understood in this sense; we frequently fear something without knowing why; but when we address ourselves to a Protector we always know why, it is in the persuasion that he can defend us, a persuasion which has always a foundation,—a basis. But in Fetish worship where is the motive? ”

“ Whether an animal be worshipped as the receptacle or 232incarnation of an indwelling divine soul or other deity, or as one of the myriad representatives of the presiding god of its class, the case is included under and explained by the general theory of fetish-worship already discussed. ”

“ Yet, remember it is a most important part of practical Fetish, for on it depends divination and heaps of such like matters, that are parts of both the witch doctor and the Fetish priest’s daily work.
One of the fundamental doctrines of Fetish is that the connection of a certain spirit with a certain mass of matter, a material object, is not permanent; the African will point out to you a lightning-stricken tree and tell you that its spirit has been killed; he will tell you when the cooking pot has gone to bits that it has lost its spirit ”

“ Paganism in West Africa is known by the name of “fetishism.” It assumes different forms in the various tribes. It is to a large extent a system of devil worship, in connection with which the belief in witchcraft plays an important part. Not only are the deities themselves called “fetishes,” but the religious performances of acts of worship, and the offerings presented are also spoken of as “fetish,” or sacred, because they are performed and offered in honor of those deities. ”

“ The fetish is merely a means for furthering purposes of magic. It is especially the fetish, therefore, that represents the transition from soul-beliefs to pure magic-beliefs. For this reason we may speak of a 'cult of the fetish' only in so far as external ceremonies are employed for the purpose of arousing the fetish to magical activity. Such a fetish cult does not include expressions of reverence and thanksgiving, as do the soul and totem cults and later, in a greater measure, the deity cult. ”

“ We have seen, above, the reason why fetishism becomes eventually distasteful to the common consciousness: the beings, superior to man, which are worshipped by the community, are worshipped as having the interests of the community in their charge, and as having the good of the community at heart; whereas a fetish is sought and found by the individual, to advance his private interests, even to the cost and loss of other individuals and of the community at large. ”

“ Then come the inferior gods, very numerous, and sometimes arranged in a hierarchy. It is they who are sent into Fetishes to watch over and protect man. The Fetish, according to the evidence of devout priests and Negroes, is not the God himself, but only the abode of the God. ”

“ A fetishism of this sort, purely magical in purpose, may be found particularly in the Soudan regions of Africa. Fetishistic magic-cult here prevails in its most diverse forms, having, to all appearances, practically displaced the original soul and totem beliefs, though traces of the latter are everywhere present. Frequently it is an individual who calls upon his fetish, perhaps to free him from a sickness, or to protect him from an epidemic, or also to aid him in an undertaking, to influence distant objects, injure an enemy, etc. ”

“ To quote Kroeber once more:
It looks therefore as if the American priesthood had originated in association with these two ceremonial traits of the fetish bundle and the painted altar—both conspicuously unknown in the Eastern hemisphere. [208]
There is scarcely any limit to the fetishes that exist, for they are mediators between men and the deified animal or object which each particular fetish represents, and they are therefore an essential accompaniment of all dances, or other rites, also of all the supreme events of life, such as birth, adolescence, and death. ”

“ Into the objects has passed the magic power of these ancestors. By their agency, the plants and animals which man utilizes as food may be increased; through them, evils may be averted and, in particular, diseases may be cured. The universal characteristic of the fetish, however, over and above this special mode of origin, is the fact that it is supposed to harbour a soul-like, demoniacal being. In fact, most of the phenomena of so-called fetishism, and those which are still regarded as typical of it, are to be found outside of totemic cult. ”

“ These neophytes usually preserve some kind of method in their madness, and take care to touch the representative of that form of worship to which they are most inclined, though sometimes accidents do happen and a wrong one is touched. The fetish men speak a language peculiar to themselves, and unknown to the common people, which they learn in the fetish schools, and call “the holy fetish word.” ”

“ I need not remind you that at that early stage a fetish was not an idol, it may or may not have had a regular form; a stone, a root, an amulet may serve as a fetish. In this stage of development every individual came to believe that he had a certain protective charm. We can hardly believe he had a system of gods or that he recognized such. Later in its evolution fetishism became incorporated with other higher elements, especially symbolism, but in its archaic conception this was impossible. ”

“ The charms of this third group are to be regarded as fetishes so long as the recognition lasts that they are dependent for their virtue upon these extraneous beings; but when this belief is lost the charm becomes a mere talisman or amulet. The change from a fetish to a luck-object is constantly taking place owing to the despiritualising effect of increasing civilisation. ”

“ Now, in proportion as the resemblance of certain phenomena was observed, it was necessary to classify the corresponding fetishes, and to reduce them to a chief, who, from this time, was elevated to the rank of a god—that is to say, an ideal agent, habitually invisible, whose residence is not rigorously fixed. There could not exist, properly speaking, a fetish common to several bodies ”