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Updated: May 31, 2025
Odd little objects, fetiches which represented people to him, stood arranged on his writing table, and were never to be touched. He gazed at them until, as if by some feat of black magic, he turned them into living persons, typical and yet individual. We have recorded that the actual writing down of the dialogue was often swift and easy, when the period of incubation was complete.
Muller is obliged to criticise the system of De Brosses, who introduced this rather unfortunate term to science, in an admirable work, 'Le Culte des Dieux Fetiches' . We call the work 'admirable, because, considering the contemporary state of knowledge and speculation, De Brosses's book is brilliant, original, and only now and then rash or confused. Mr.
He confuses, while the science of religion distinguishes between, animal gods and fetiches. He asserts what we now know to be false, viz., that a fetich is an inanimate object and nothing more; and that the native rejects, or "breaks," one of these gods, knowing it to be a god.
We too would say that, among people who adore fetiches and ghosts, the concept of gods no doubt silently grew up, as men assumed a more and more definite attitude towards the tangible and intangible objects they held sacred. Mr. The negro, if he tells a white man that a fetich is a god, transposes terms in the same unscientific way. Mr.
Muller then goes on to prove that 'no religion consists of fetichism only, choosing his examples of higher elements in negro religion from the collections of Waitz. It is difficult to see what bearing this has on his argument. Even if no tribe in the world is exclusively devoted to fetiches, the argument makes no progress.
"Their fetiches," says Du Chaillu, speaking of some of the African races, "consisted of fingers and tails of monkeys; of human hair, skin, teeth, bones; of clay, old nails, copper chains; shells, feathers, claws, and skulls of birds; pieces of iron, copper, or wood; seeds of plants, ashes of various substances, and I cannot tell what more." Equatorial Africa, p. 93.
Even Bob Standish would have to hide his amusement; why, Bob himself had made society and success his fetiches. And Anna Anna who was so ambitious for him how could she endure the status of a cheap showman's wife? And even if she had been willing to ally himself with such a business, how could he conceivably make ten thousand dollars out of it in a single year? Ten?
All the material of his art was comprised in a kind of basket, of which a calebash formed the bottom, and which was filled with shells, amulets, little wooden idols, and other fetiches, plus a notable quantity of dung balls, important accessories to the incantations and divinatory practises of the center of Africa. One peculiarity was soon discovered by the crowd. This magician was dumb.
The production of idols and fetiches continues, but the production of fine art is apparently at an end. The tradition is moribund, a misfortune one is tempted to attribute, along with most that have lately afflicted that unhappy continent, to the whites. To do so, however, would not be altogether just.
Yet when my mother sold me for ten patagons on the coast of Guinea, she said to me: 'My dear child, bless our fetiches, adore them for ever; they will make thee live happily; thou hast the honour of being the slave of our lords, the whites, which is making the fortune of thy father and mother. Alas! I know not whether I have made their fortunes; this I know, that they have not made mine.
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