GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 377 
has permitted the punishment. On this account, when a 
man is about to commit a‘crime, or do that which his 
conscience tells him he ought not to do, he lays aside his 
feliche, and covers up his deity, that he may not be privy 
to the deed. Some of the persons of the expedition shewed 
to one of the chief men a magnet, which he said was very 
bad fetiche for black man ; he was too lively and had too 
much savey. 
This would be all well enough, if an opinion of their 
virtues in warding off evil affected only themselves; and 
they might even be useful when considered as a guard upon 
their actions ; but their influence does not stop here ; they 
are considered in one sense as a kind of deity, to whom 
prayers are addressed for their assistance, and if afforded, 
thanksgivings are returned ; for the honour of the fetiche 
also, abstinence is performed, and penalties inflicted ; but 
if unsuccessful in any enterprize on which the fetiche has 
been consulted, the owner immediately parts with him, 
and purchases another from the priest. ‘These cunning 
men have gone a step further, and have succeeded in per- 
suading the silly people, that by their means, any part of 
a man’s property may be fetiched or made sacred, in the 
same manner, or nearly so, as the tabboo, which is so uni- 
versally practised in all the Pacific and South Sea islands ; 
and their mode of detecting a thief, bears a very remark- 
able resemblance to that which Campbell describes to be 
used among the people of the Sandwich islands. 
But the evil does not end here. Mr. Fitzmaurice, 
while he stopped at Banza Cooloo, was witness to a trans- 
8C 
