294 
THE WESTERN COAST. 
" victuals, &c. ; but if a rogue and cheatee, he must 
" be tossed here and there, never still." The ne^ 
groes regard death with the greatest horror :. ac<- 
cording to Bosnian, no person, on pain of death, 
durst presume to mention death in the presence of 
the king of Whidah. 
The opinions concerning fetiches, termed Obi 
by the Africans in the West Indies, are extremely 
obscure ; but if we may trust Loyer, who attends 
ed particularly to the subject, they are not wor- 
shipped as deities, but regarded as charms. The 
negroes are taught, by tradition, to regard them 
as the dispensers of good and evil, by means of 
some occult qualities, which they derive from God, 
who is the creator of fetiches, which he has sent 
upon the earth for the good of mankind. The word 
fetiche, or feitisso, is Portuguese, and signifies a 
charm ; and the supposed power of the fetiche is 
precisely similar to that occult virtue of charms, 
lucky and unlucky numbers, and other superstitious 
ceremonies and observances, which has such gene-, 
ral influence on weak and unthinking minds, and 
to which the greatest unbelievers often attach im- 
plicit credit. Gamesters, sailors, and others, who, 
according to the vulgar opinion, are under the do- 
mination of that occult power, termed chance, or 
who are placed in situations in which it is impos- 
sible to calculate, or even to conjecture, the future 
event from the number of circumstances by which 
