Magic and FetishismHaddon, Alfred C. (Alfred Cort)
Religion
Magic and Fetishism
Haddon, Alfred C. (Alfred Cort)
Fetishism; Magic
4. The power of the anchor-spirit was thus established, and the natives
worshipped it in fear and hope.
Thus the fetish was evolved.
But more commonly a spirit is attracted to the object from without, as
in the case of the _suhman_ of the Gold Coast, where the spirit of the
Sasabonsum is invited into the stone or other object prepared for it,
or as in the most usual type of West African fetish, where the wandering
spirit becomes localised in an object by means of the ceremonies and
conjurings of the Uganga or magic doctor (53, 81).
The distinction between the different powers animating the fetish are
clearly distinguishable on the Gold Coast (16, 275). The Tshi believe
that everything in nature is animated; that everything not made with
hands has an indwelling spirit, possessing powers beneficial or
prejudicial to man, according to whether it is propitiated or neglected;
so the more dangerous spirits, those of rivers, mountains, rocks, and
shoals are worshipped. Later on an image is made of the nature-god, from
material from his habitat, and it is brought to a place more convenient
for the worshippers, and forms their tutelary deity. Gradually his origin
is forgotten, and the nature-god becomes a fetish.
But besides these ‘nature-gods’ there are ‘ghost-gods.’ The fetish may
be animated by a ‘ghost-god,’ for the power of dead men lives on in
their ghosts; sacrifices are made to them, and ghost-gods also develop
into tutelary deities. Perhaps ancestor-worship and Fetishism may be
more intimately related than is generally acknowledged (16, 280). The
Melanesians believe that the souls of the dead act through bones; while
the independent spirits choose stones as their mediums (6, 131).
9. In the popular view of Fetishism the material object was worshipped
in its own character, but one of the fundamental conceptions of the
West African fetish is that =the spirit and the material object can be
dissociated=, and that, although the spirit is temporarily incorporated
in the fetish, yet the two are no more inseparable than man’s soul and
body. The conception of the duality of everything lies at the root of
all the West African beliefs. ‘Everything that he knows by means of his
senses he regards as a two-fold entity—part spirit, part not spirit,
or, as we should say, matter; the connection of a certain spirit with a
certain mass of matter, he holds, is not permanent. He will point out to
you a lightning-struck tree, and tell you its spirit has been broken; he
will tell you, when the cooking-pot has been broken, that it has lost its
spirit; if his weapon fails, it is because some one has stolen, or made
its spirit sick by witchcraft. In every action of his life he shows you
how much he lives with a great powerful spirit world around him’ (39,
141).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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