The fetish may consist of any object whatsoever, but the object chosen is generally either a wonderful ornament or curiosity, a symbolic charm with sympathetic properties, or a sign or token representing an ideal notion or being. It is credited with mysterious power, owing to its being, temporarily or permanently, the vessel or habitation, vehicle for communication, or instrument of some unseen power or spirit, which is conceived to possess personality and will, and ability to see, hear, understand, and act. It may act by the will or force of its own power or spirit, or by force of a foreign power entering it or acting on it from without, and the material object and the power or spirit may be dissociated. It is worshipped, prayed to, sacrificed to, talked with, and petted or ill-treated with regard to its past or future behaviour. In its most characteristic form a fetish must be consecrated by a priest. 1. =A fetish may be any object whatsoever=, but there is always a reason for its choice. The simplest reason is =that it attracts attention= (61, 61) (71, ii. 145), and anything that attracts attention at once acquires an exaggerated value, and appeals to that natural instinct of human nature, found also among some birds and animals, the love for collecting. ‘In the love of abnormal curiosities there shows itself a craving for the marvellous, an endeavour to get free from the tedious sense of law and uniformity in nature’ (71, ii. 145). So the fetish consists of a queer-shaped stone, a bright bead, a stick, parrots’ feathers, a root, claw, seed, bone, or any curious or conspicuous object. In Benin they take everything which seems extraordinary in nature for a god, and make offerings to him, and each is his own priest, in order to worship his gods in what manner pleases him best (54, xvi. 530). =Or= the object =may have attracted attention by its behaviour=. A visitor to a fetish hut took up a stone about as big as a hen’s egg, and its owner told its history. ‘He was once going out on important business, but crossing the threshold he trod on this stone and hurt himself. Ha, ha! thought he, art thou here? So he took the stone, and it helped him through his undertaking for days’ (71, ii. 158). =Sometimes the object= to be chosen =is revealed= to a man =in a dream=, as among the natives of the Gold Coast, where a dead relation will return to direct a man to go to a certain spot and there select a certain stone, or piece of a tree, which he is to bring home with him, and guard and reverence as the habitation of a protecting deity (15, 90).