Elements of Folk Psychology: Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of MankindWundt, Wilhelm Max
Science
Elements of Folk Psychology: Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
Wundt, Wilhelm Max
Ethnopsychology
there is a certain similarity. For, the Semitic peoples believed
that the celestial migration of the soul would occur only after its
sojourn under the earth, following upon its resurrection, which, it was
thought, would take place only at the end of time. It was in this form,
as is well known, that Christianity took over into its resurrection
belief the ideas developed by Judaism, and, with them, the custom of
interment.
12. THE ORIGIN OF THE FETISH.
If, as is customary, we employ the term 'fetish' to mean any natural
object to which demoniacal powers are ascribed, or, as the word itself
(Fr. _fétiche_ from Lat. _facticius_, artificially constructed)
indicates, an artificial, inanimate object of similar powers, a wide
gulf appears at first glance to separate the fetish from the psyche.
Nevertheless, the two are very closely related, as is indicated by the
totemic origin of certain primitive forms of fetishes. In the cults
of totemic clans, magic stones and pieces of wood are reverenced and
preserved, being regarded as powerful instruments that were originally
fashioned, according to legend, by magic beings of a distant past.
Into the objects has passed the magic power of these ancestors. By
their agency, the plants and animals which man utilizes as food may
be increased; through them, evils may be averted and, in particular,
diseases may be cured. The universal characteristic of the fetish,
however, over and above this special mode of origin, is the fact that
it is supposed to harbour a soul-like, demoniacal being. In fact, most
of the phenomena of so-called fetishism, and those which are still
regarded as typical of it, are to be found outside of totemic cult.
It is primarily African fetishism, a cult form which is apparently
independent of totemism, that has given its characteristic stamp to the
conception of the fetish. Among the Soudan negroes, fetishes generally
consist of artificially fashioned wooden objects, not infrequently
bearing a grimacing likeness of a human face. As regards the possession
of magical powers, however, they do not differ from the so-called
churingas of the Australians, although the latter are, as a rule,
natural objects that have been picked up accidentally and that differ
from ordinary stones and pieces of wood only in their striking form. It
is clearly the form, both in the case of the artificial as well as of
the natural fetish, that has caused the inanimate object to be regarded
as a demoniacal vehicle of the soul. Yet it is not a lifeless object
as such that constitutes a fetish, but the fact that a demoniacal,
soul-like being is believed to lurk within it as an agency of magical
activities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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