However it may be with human beings, few culture-folk will admit that sorcerers can effect the ordinary phenomena of nature, and in this respect, at all events, they should soon become discredited. On one occasion in Murray Island, Torres Straits, a native showed me two stones in a recess on the foreshore which were pointed at by men holding certain leaves which were left there. A ‘big wind’ would immediately arise which lasted until the plants were removed. This _zogo_ was employed only in the season of the South-east trade wind. On my asking whether the ceremony was done in the North-west monsoon, my informant said emphatically, ‘Can’t do it in North-west.’ That is, the charm is performed only at that season of the year when the required result is possible—indeed, when it is of normal occurrence (28, 60; 29, vi.) In this, as in other cases, I found that =the impossible was never attempted=. A rain charm would not be made when there was no expectation of rain coming, or a south-east wind be raised during the wrong season. Probably this is the experience of others elsewhere, and thus it is not remarkable if the desired result frequently follows the performance of the charming. A =loophole is generally provided in case of failure=. Either some irregularity or mistake occurred in the performance of the charm, or another sorcerer was performing contrary magic which proved of greater potency. FETISHISM I. DEFINITION The word Fetishism has been so misused of late that ethnologists are apt to view it askance and hesitate to employ it in religious classifications. It has been stretched to such an extent in various directions that it has lost the definition and precision necessary for a scientific term. Starting from a humble origin, referring in its native land (Portugal) to the charms and amulets worn ‘for luck,’ and to relics of saints, ‘fetish’ grew to such amazing proportions when transplanted to West African soil, that at last there was nothing connected with West African religion to which it was not applied. De Brosses introduced Fétichisme as a general descriptive term (8), supposing the word to be connected with _chose fée_, _fatum_. Comte[1] employed it to describe the universal religious tendency to which Dr. Tylor has given the name of Animism (71, chaps. xi.-xvii.). Bastholm claimed ‘everything produced by nature or art, which receives divine honour, including the sun, moon, earth, air, fire, water, with rivers, trees, stones, images and animals, considered as objects of divine worship, as Fetishism;[2] and Lippert (46) defines Fetishism as ‘a belief in the souls of the departed coming to dwell in any thing that is tangible or visible in heaven or earth.’