166 



W. HOSTE, B.A., ON FETICHISxM — 



their past and present wrongs by bringing disease and death on the 

 offenders. From this naturally arises ancestor worship. Savages 

 are in this very like their more civilized brethren. As one clubman 

 said to another, who was boasting of the greatness of his ancestors, 

 " Why, sir, you are like the potato plant : the best part is under- 

 ground ! " Thus they believe the souls of chiefs and warriors rise 

 to divine honours. This idea of the divine ancestor may be carried 

 far enough to reach supreme deity, as when the Zulus, working back 

 from ancestor to ancestor, reach LunkulunJculu, the Old-old-one, as 

 creator of the world. 



Hence animism differs from fetichism, for the latter is the belief 

 that the possession of an object can procure for its possessor the 

 services of the spirit lodged within it. 



Hence we reach the three divisions into which spiritual beings 

 fall, according to the African. (1) Divine. These are to be wor- 

 shipped, and this is idolatry. (2) Ghosts, by this term meaning the 

 spirits of the dead who have not reached apotheosis. These have 

 to be propitiated in the ways mentioned by the lecturer. Under 

 this heading comes the doctrine of relics amongst us. (3) Fetiches, 

 meaning thereby the beings that are lodged in the various things that 

 are known by that name. These have to be compelled to serve, or 

 else the objects in which they are supposed to lodge suffer punish- 

 ment by being kicked, chopped, burned, etc. How child-like ! And 

 here we find a place for mascots, lucky pigs, billikens, crooked six- 

 pences, etc. Now the influence which the possession of a fetich is 

 thought to give to its possessor is known as ju ju, as we have and 

 use the term luck." Anything extraordinary happening is put 

 down to ju ju. For instance, when he first comes in contact with 

 white men, and sees some of the commonplace exhibitions of modern 

 science, commonplace to us but startling to him, he puts it all down 

 to " white man's ju ju." Now fetichism may be called primitive 

 when the savage personifying everything around him chooses from 

 among these an imaginary personality in an object capable of being 

 appropriated by himself whose spirit becomes his protector or his 

 slave. Or secondary, when the object is chosen as a fetich either 

 spontaneously or through a magical operation. 



At the other end of the series we have deism, the root principle 

 of which is the transcendence of God ; pantheism, the root principle 

 of which is the immanence of God ; and theism, which combines both 



