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 lajs aside his 

 fetiche, 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 

 praj'ers 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 Avhich the fetiche has 

 been consulted, the owner immediately parts Avith 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 iabhoo, 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- 



3C 



