Part 9

‘The child is no sooner born than the priest (here called Fetichee or Confoe) is sent for, who binds a parcel of ropes and coral and other trash about the head, body, arms, and legs of the infant; after which he exorcises, according to their accustomed manner, by which they believe it is armed against all sickness and ill accidents, and doubtless this is as effectual as if done by the Pope himself’ (54, xvi. 388).

Father Merolla, a still earlier traveller, mentions these charms from the Congo district (1682).

‘The fourth abuse is that whilst their children are young these people bind them about with certain superstitious cords made by the wizards, who likewise teach them to utter a kind of spell while they are binding them. They also at the same time hang about them bones and teeth of divers animals, being preservatives, as they say, against the power of any disease. Likewise there are some mothers so foolish that they will hang Agnus Deis, medals, and relicks to the aforesaid cords’ (54, xvi. 237). ‘To remedy these disorders, we have thought proper to issue forth the following ordinances: That all mothers should make the cords they bound their infants with of palm leaves that had been consecrated on Palm Sunday; moreover guard them well with other such relicks as we are accustomed to make use of at the time of baptism’ (54, xvi. 239).

These fetish charms may be worshipped and regarded as anthropopathic, when they are true fetishes, or they may be merely ‘lucky’ with no religious regard or spiritual interpretation, or they may be anything between the two extremes.

7. Just as the human body and soul form one individual, so the material object and its occupying spirit or power form one individual, more vague perhaps, but still with many attributes distinctively human. It =possesses personality and will=, it has also many human characters. It possesses most of the human passions, anger, revenge, also generosity and gratitude; it is within reach of influence and may be benevolent, hence to be deprecated and placated, and its aid enlisted (53, 62).

The objects used as fetishes by the Ainu, sticks, skulls of animals, claws, paws, mistletoe, stones, etc., are all looked upon as animate, with a distinct life of their own, with power to protect their worshippers in time of danger, heal them when sick, and bless them with general prosperity (4, 375-6).

In this characteristic, in the possession of personality and will, in its material and spiritual duality, a fetish differs from a charm or an amulet as from an idol; it is always ‘anthropopathic’ (61, 61).

8. The fetish may =act by will or force of its own proper spirit=, or =by force of a foreign spirit, entering or acting on it from without=.

‘Beyond the regularly recognised habitats of the spirits, that may be called natural to them, any other location may be acquired by them temporarily, for longer or shorter periods’ (53, 62).

When the fetish acts by force of its own proper spirit, it is something more than mere Animism (v. above, p. 77). It does not become a fetish by applying the general belief in souls to a special object, but by a process which has been divided by Schultze into four stages (62, 215-223):—

1. The value which an uncultured man attributes to any object is often exaggerated, especially if the object is in any way conspicuous, unusual, or mysterious.

2. He attributes to it an anthropopathic nature, believing that all natural objects are like man, with human characteristics.

3. By the causal connection of ideas he associates the object with auspicious or inauspicious events, which he believes it to influence.

4. A belief in its power leads him to reverence it, and to attempt to conciliate and propitiate the power by worship.

As an example, the anchor cast up on the beach at the mouth of the river Keissi (45) may be cited:—

1. The anchor was an unusual object, and was therefore credited with an exaggerated value and regarded with great interest.

2. It was believed to possess a life of its own, a soul or spirit, somewhat analogous to man’s.

3. A Kaffir broke off a piece of the anchor, and he soon afterwards died. The two events were associated with one another, and the breaking of the anchor was believed to have caused the death.

4. The power of the anchor-spirit was thus established, and the natives worshipped it in fear and hope.

Thus the fetish was evolved.

But more commonly a spirit is attracted to the object from without, as in the case of the suhman of the Gold Coast, where the spirit of the Sasabonsum is invited into the stone or other object prepared for it, or as in the most usual type of West African fetish, where the wandering spirit becomes localised in an object by means of the ceremonies and conjurings of the Uganga or magic doctor (53, 81).

The distinction between the different powers animating the fetish are clearly distinguishable on the Gold Coast (16, 275). The Tshi believe that everything in nature is animated; that everything not made with hands has an indwelling spirit, possessing powers beneficial or prejudicial to man, according to whether it is propitiated or neglected; so the more dangerous spirits, those of rivers, mountains, rocks, and shoals are worshipped. Later on an image is made of the nature-god, from material from his habitat, and it is brought to a place more convenient for the worshippers, and forms their tutelary deity. Gradually his origin is forgotten, and the nature-god becomes a fetish.

But besides these ‘nature-gods’ there are ‘ghost-gods.’ The fetish may be animated by a ‘ghost-god,’ for the power of dead men lives on in their ghosts; sacrifices are made to them, and ghost-gods also develop into tutelary deities. Perhaps ancestor-worship and Fetishism may be more intimately related than is generally acknowledged (16, 280). The Melanesians believe that the souls of the dead act through bones; while the independent spirits choose stones as their mediums (6, 131).

9. In the popular view of Fetishism the material object was worshipped in its own character, but one of the fundamental conceptions of the West African fetish is that =the spirit and the material object can be dissociated=, and that, although the spirit is temporarily incorporated in the fetish, yet the two are no more inseparable than man’s soul and body. The conception of the duality of everything lies at the root of all the West African beliefs. ‘Everything that he knows by means of his senses he regards as a two-fold entity—part spirit, part not spirit, or, as we should say, matter; the connection of a certain spirit with a certain mass of matter, he holds, is not permanent. He will point out to you a lightning-struck tree, and tell you its spirit has been broken; he will tell you, when the cooking-pot has been broken, that it has lost its spirit; if his weapon fails, it is because some one has stolen, or made its spirit sick by witchcraft. In every action of his life he shows you how much he lives with a great powerful spirit world around him’ (39, 141).

When the spirit is ‘dead’ the fetish has no further value, ‘the little thing you kept the spirit in is no more use now, and only fit to sell to a white man as “a big curio”!’ (40, 304-5). But occasionally sanctity still clings to the former dwelling of the spirit, and it is used as a charm, though no longer worshipped as a fetish.

The Mirrone, a tree worshipped in the Congo region, was the tutelar god of the dwelling, and the owners placed calabashes full of palm-tree wine at the foot of the tree for the spirit to drink, ‘nor do they dare to tread upon its leaves any more than we would on the holy cross.’ But if it were damaged in any way, they no longer worshipped it, but they stripped off the bark or rind, which was made into petticoats for the women, to act as protecting charms (54, xvi. 236). Owing to the possibility of the spirit leaving the fetish, it has to be tested, to see whether it really contains an indwelling spirit or no, and the natives of the Gold Coast put their Bohsum in the fire as a probation. If the fire injures it in the very least degree, it is not a true Bohsum, there is no indwelling spirit (15, 92).

Sometimes the spirit is forcibly ejected from his dwelling-place for a particular purpose. Soon after Sir Richard Burton had arrived at Dahomé, ‘a fetish youth made his appearance in the evening, knelt down before the domestic altar, broke some of the images, and went away declaring that he had called out the fetishes, and that I might after the evocatio deorum do my worst’ (9, i. 299).

10. The fetish is =worshipped, prayed to, sacrificed to, and talked with=, as a sentient and willing personification of the spirit or power. Examples of sacrifices and prayers and worship offered to the fetishes are found in all parts, and many instances have already been quoted.