458 



FETKINA FEW-THAT-LIVED 



[B. A. E. 



Among the Santee and the Muskhogean 

 and Iroquoian tribes the personal tutelar, 

 having a different origin, is scrupulously 

 discriminated from all those objects and 

 beings which may be called fetishes. The 

 tutelar has a particular name as a class 

 of beings. Rev. John Eastman says that 

 this is true of the Santee, and it is prob- 

 ably true of many other tribes. Some 

 fetishes are inherited from kindred, while 

 others are bought from neighboring 

 tribes at a great price, thus constituting 

 a valuable article of intertriljal commerce. 

 It is also acquired by choice for multi- 

 farious reasons. 



A person may have one or many 

 fetishes. The name fetish is also applied 

 to most of the articles found in the medi- 

 cine sack of the shaman, the pindikosan 

 of the Chippewa. These are commonly 

 otter, snake, owl, bird, and other skins; 

 roots, bark, and berries of many kinds; 

 potent powders, and a heterogeneous col- 

 lection of other things employed by the 

 shaman. 



A fetish is not a product of a definite 

 phase of religious activity, much less is it 

 the particular prerogative of any plane of 

 human culture; for along with the adora- 

 tion of the fetish goes the worship of the 

 sun, moon, earth, 

 life, trees, rivers, 

 water, n^ountains, 

 and storms as the 

 embodiment of as 

 many personali- 

 ties. It is there- 

 fore erroneous to 

 assign the fetish to the artificial stage of 

 religion sometimes called hecastotheism. 

 The fetish must be carefully distinguished 

 from the tutelar of every person. Among 

 the Iroquois these are known by distinct 

 names, indicative of their functions: ochi- 

 na'ke»'da^ for fetish, and oidro"' for the 

 tutelar. 



Mooney says, in describing the fetish, 

 that it may be "a bone, a feather, a carved 

 or painted stick, a stone arrowhead, a cu- 

 rious fossil or concretion, a tuft of hair, a 

 necklace of red berries, the stuffed skin 

 ofalizard,thedried 

 hand of an enemy, 

 a small bag of 

 pounded charcoal 

 mixed with human 

 bio o d— a n y t h i n g , 

 in fact, which the wildcat fetish of the chase; 

 owner's medicine ^''"- ^^'""""' 



dream or imagination might suggest, no 

 matter how uncouth or unaccountable, 

 provided it be easily portable and attach- 

 able. The fetish might be the inspiration 

 of a dream or the gift of a medicine-man, 

 or even atrophy taken from a slain enemy, 

 or a bird, animal, or reptile; but, however 

 insignificant in itself, it had always, in 



Whale Fetish 

 Eskimo. 



OF wood; wester 

 (Murdoch ) 



Fetish of Dried Bees 



Box; WESTERN ESKI^ 



(Murdoch) 



the owner's mind at least, some symlwlic 

 connection with occult power. It might 

 be fastened to the scalp-lock as a pend- 

 ant, attached to some part of the dress, 

 hung from the bridle bit, concealed be- 

 tween the covers of a shield, or guarded 

 in a special repository in the dwelling. 

 Mothers sometimes tied the fetish to the 

 child's cradle. 



"A fetish noted among the Sioux is de- 

 scribed as the image of a little man, which 

 was inclosed in a cylindrical wooden 

 case and enveloped in sacred swan's down 

 (Riggs). A hunting and divining fetish 

 among the Cherokee 

 consisted of a trans- 

 parent crystal, which 

 its owner kept wrap- 

 ped up in buckskin in 

 a sacred cave and oc- 

 casionally fed by rub- 

 bing over it the l)lood 

 of a deer. The Pueblo tribes have nu- 

 merous war and hunting fetishes of 

 stone, small figurines cut to resemble 

 various predatory animals, with eyes of 

 inlaid turquoise and one or more arrow- 

 heads bound at the back or side, and 

 smeared with frequent oblations of blood 

 from the slain game. The protective 

 amulet sometimes took the form of a 

 small figurine of a bird or other animal 

 swift in flight, as the hawk; silent in 

 movement, as the owl; or expert in dodg- 

 ing, as the dragonfly. In all tribes the 

 nature and mysterious origin of the per- 

 sonal fetish or 'medicine' were the secret 

 of the individual owner or of the maker, 

 who, as a rule, revealed it only to one 

 formally chosen as heir to the mystic pos- 

 session and pledged in turn to the same 

 secrecy." 



Consult Bourke in 9th Rep. B. A. E., 

 1892; Clark, Indian Sign Language, 1885; 

 Cushing, Zuni Fetishes, 2d Rep. B. A. E., 

 1883; Jesuit Relations, Thwaites ed., 

 1896-1901; Lafitau, INIoeurs des Sauvages 

 Ameriquains, 1724; Maximilian, Travels, 

 1843; Midler, Orig. and Growth of Re- 

 ligion, 1879; Murdoch in 9th Rep. B. A.E., 

 1892: Nelson in 18th Rep. B. A. E., 1899; 

 Riggs, Gospel Among the Dakotas, 1869. 



(j. N. B. H. ) 



Fetkina. A Chnagmiut village on the 

 X. arm of the Yukon delta, Alaska; pop. 

 30 in 1880.— Petroff in 10th Census, 

 Alaska, 111, 1884. 



Tetutlin. A Hankutchin village of 106 

 people on upper Yukon r., Alaska, near 

 the mouth of Forty-mile cr.— Petroff, 10th 

 Census, Alaska, map, 1884. 

 David's people.— Petroff, Rep. on Alaska, 62,1880. 

 Fetoutlin.— Petroff, 10th Census, Alaska, 12, 1884. 



Few that Lived (The) . A former Yank- 

 tonai band under chief Two Bears.— 

 Culbertson in Smithson. Rep. 1850, 141, 

 1851. 



