Fetichism in West Africa : $b forty years' observation of native customs and superstitionsNassau, Robert Hamill
Philosophy
Fetichism in West Africa : $b forty years' observation of native customs and superstitions
Nassau, Robert Hamill
Ethnology -- Africa, West; Fetishism -- Africa, West
The slaves exported from Africa to the British possessions in the West
Indies brought with them some of the seeds of African plants, especially
those they regarded as "medicinal," or they found among the fauna and
flora of the tropical West Indies some of the same plants and animals held
by them as sacred to fetich in their tropical Africa. The ceiba, or
silk-cotton tree, at whose base I find in Africa so many votive offerings
of fetich worship, they found flourishing on Jamaica. They had established
on their plantations the fetich doctor, their dance, their charm, their
lore, before they had learned English at all. And when the British
missionaries came among them with school and church, while many of the
converts were sincere, there were those of the doctor class who, like
Simon Magus, entered into the church-fold for sake of whatever gain they
could make by the white man's new influence, the white man's Holy Spirit!
Outwardly everything was serene and Christian. Within was working an
element of diabolism, fetichism, there known by the name of Obeah, under
whose leaven some of the churches were wrecked. And the same diabolism,
known as voodoo worship, in the Negro communities of the Southern United
States has emasculated the spiritual life of many professed Christians.
It must be admitted, as to this whole matter of witchcraft belief and
witchcraft murder and witchcraft execution, however wrong the Negro
belief, his sense of justice is aggrieved by the attitude of the foreign
missionary and the foreign government. Something should be allowed to that
sense of justice. Both missionary and government err sometimes, in their
judgment of individual or tribal crime and in their punishment of it, by
arbitrarily following only civilized law and the civilized point of view;
ignoring or not giving proper weight, in the make up of their judgment, to
the degree to which the fetich enters as a factor in native motives and
acts, and the power with which it influences native thought.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account