FETISSISM. 



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341 



of trade and commerce, which sits ridiculously upon 

 their minds as a rich garment would upon their persons. 



Fetissism — the word is derived from the Portuguese 

 feitico, "a doing," — scil. of magic, by euphuism — is still 

 the only faith known in East Africa. Its origin is 

 easily explained by the aspect of the physical world, 

 which has coloured the thoughts and has directed the 

 belief of man : he reflects, in fact, the fantastical and 

 monstrous character of the animal and vegetable pro- 

 ductions around him. Nature, in these regions rarely 

 sublime or beautiful, more often terrible and desolate, 

 with the gloomy forest, the impervious jungle, the 

 tangled hill, and the dread uniform waste tenanted by 

 deadly inhabitants, arouses in his mind a sensation of 

 utter feebleness, a vague and nameless awe. Untaught 

 to recommend himself for protection to a Superior 

 Being, he addresses himself directly to the objects of 

 his reverence and awe : he prostrates himself before the 

 sentiment within him, hoping to propitiate it as he would 

 satisfy a fellow-man. The grand mysteries of life and 

 death, to him unrevealed and unexplained, the want of 

 a true interpretation of the admirable phenomena of 

 creation, and the vagaries and misconceptions of his 

 own degraded imagination, awaken in him ideas of 

 horror, and people the invisible world with ghost and 

 goblin, demon and spectrum, the incarnations, as it were, 

 of his own childish fears. Deepened by the dread of 

 destruction, ever strong in the barbarian breast, his 

 terror causes him to look with suspicion upon all around 

 him: "How," inquires the dying African, " can I alone 

 be ill when others are well, unless I have been be- 

 witched?" Hence the belief in magical and superna- 

 tural powers in man, which the stronger minded have 

 turned to their own advantage. 



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