I Tried To Explain
To Him How Much I Had Enjoyed Myself And How I Realised I Owed It
All To Him; But He Persisted In His Opinion That My Intentions And
Ambitions Were Suicidal, And Took Me Out The Ensuing Sunday, As It
Were On A String.
CHAPTER XII.
FETISH.
In which the Voyager attempts cautiously to approach the subject of
Fetish, and gives a classification of spirits, and some account of
the Ibet and Orunda.
Having given some account of my personal experiences among an
African tribe in its original state, i.e. in a state uninfluenced by
European ideas and culture, I will make an attempt to give a rough
sketch of the African form of thought and the difficulties of
studying it, because the study of this thing is my chief motive for
going to West Africa. Since 1893 I have been collecting information
in its native state regarding Fetish, and I use the usual terms
fetish and ju-ju because they have among us a certain fixed value - a
conventional value, but a useful one. Neither "fetish" nor "ju-ju"
are native words. Fetish comes from the word the old Portuguese
explorers used to designate the objects they thought the natives
worshipped, and in which they were wise enough to recognise a
certain similarity to their own little images and relics of Saints,
"Feitico." Ju-ju, on the other hand, is French, and comes from the
word for a toy or doll, {286} so it is not so applicable as the
Portuguese name, for the native image is not a doll or toy, and has
far more affinity to the image of a saint, inasmuch as it is not
venerated for itself, or treasured because of its prettiness, but
only because it is the residence, or the occasional haunt, of a
spirit.
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