Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, January 1885Various
General
Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, January 1885
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals
objects, or ascription of supernatural powers to them, fail to support
Mr. Harrison’s view, because always accompanied by the ghost-theory,
sundry of them directly negative his view. There is the fact that an
echo is regarded as the voice of the fetich; there is the fact that the
inhabiting spirit of the fetich is supposed to “enjoy the savory smell”
of meat roasted before it; and there is the fact that the fetich is
supposed to die and may be revived. Further, there is the summarized
statement made by Beecham, an observer of fetichism in the region where
it is supposed to be specially exemplified, who says that:—
The fetiches are believed to be spiritual, intelligent
beings, who make the remarkable objects of nature their
residence, or enter occasionally into the images and
other artificial representations, which have been duly
consecrated by certain ceremonies.... They believe that
these fetiches are of both sexes, and that they require
food.
These statements are perfectly in harmony with the conclusion that
fetichism is a development of the ghost-theory, and altogether
incongruous with the interpretation of fetichism which Mr. Harrison
accepts from Comte.
Already I have named the fact that Dr. Tylor, who has probably read
more books about uncivilized peoples than any Englishman living or
dead, has concluded that fetichism is a form of spirit-worship, and
that (to give quotations relevant to the present issue)
To class an object as a fetish, demands explicit
statement that a spirit is considered as embodied in it
or acting through it or communicating by it.[69]
... A further stretch of imagination enables the lower
races to associate the souls of the dead with mere
objects.[70]
... The spirits which enter or otherwise attach
themselves to objects may be human souls. Indeed, one of
the most natural cases of the fetish-theory is when a
soul inhabits or haunts the relics of its former body.[71]
Here I may add an opinion to like effect which Dr. Tylor quotes from
the late Prof. Waitz, also an erudite anthropologist. He says:—
“According to his [the negro’s] view, a spirit dwells
or can dwell in every sensible object, and often a
very great and mighty one in an insignificant thing.
This spirit he does not consider as bound fast and
unchangeably to the corporeal thing it dwells in, but it
has only its usual or principal abode in it.”[72]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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