FETISHISM, or FETICHISM, fetish izm, the worship of material things (fetishes) as the abodes of spirits, or more strictly the belief that the possession of a thing can procure the services of a spirit lodged within it. It closely grades into idolatry, but differs in that the power is supposed to reside in the spirit, not the thing or image. It is the lowest of the unsystematic forms of worship found among uncivilized tribes, and exists especially among the negroes in Africa, but also among the natives of both Americas, the Polynesians, Australians and Siberians. The word itself a ultimately due to the Portuguese, the first Euro peans to trade on the west coast of Africa, and is the Portuguese word feitico, aartifast.* Comic used it as a term to describe what he believed to be a necessary stage in the development of all religions in which all external bodies, natural or artificial, are supposed to be animated by souls essentially analogous to our own. Any object may become a fetish, provided it is capable of being appropriated literally or meta phorically by an individual. Such objects are Hints, shells, claws, feathers, earth, salt, plants, manufactured articles, anything peculiar or un known or not understood, trees, streams, rocks. and even certain animals, as the serpents of Whydah. It is enough for an object to be accidentally associated with an event for it to be regarded as the cause and even the author of that event, whence its elevation to the rank of a fetish. Fetishes may be natural or arti ficial. Artificial fetishes are either public, pre served by priests, or private, purchasable from them usually at a very high price. In some countries kings and princes have large collec tions of fetishes, and every family has at least one. They are hereditary, and either hung up
in the dwellings or worn on the neck or else where, and are even fastened on domestic ani mals. They are made to resemble the human form, and the public fetishes are sometimes of gold and very large. The worshipers provide their fetishes liberally with food, but if prayers are not granted they frequently maltreat them. throw 'them away or beat them to pieces. In connection with fetish worship there are festi vals and sacrifices. For the latter the victims are oxen, swine and other animals; but sometimes, when the royal and priestly power are united in the sacrificer, criminals, prisoners or persons of the lowest classes of the tribe are immolated The festivals — among which the Yam and Adai festival with the Ashantees, and the fes tival in honor of Khimavong, the god or divine messenger, are especially celebrated — are gen erally attended by excess in drinking, thefts, fights and gross licentiousness. It must, how ever, be observed that the limits of the term fetish have not yet been agreed upon, as some exclude from it the worship of forests, moun tains,•rivers, etc. In the luck tokens of gamblers and other superstitious persons there is an anal ogy to the fetish of the savage. (See FA M !LIAM SPIRIT; Wirctiatarr). Consult Denett, E., 'At the Back of the Black Man's Mind' (New York 1906) ; Jevans, F. B., 'Introduction to the Study of Comparative Religion' (New York 1908) ; Milligan, R. H., 'The Fetish Folk of West Africa' (New York 1912); Nassau, R. H, 'Fetishism in West Africa' (New York 1904).