The charm, the fetish and the relic represent ascending grades of belief. They are all associated together in what we call _fetishism_. The charm operates not by reason of any intelligence within itself but by some influence from without. The horseshoe is such a charm. One of the numerous African charms is the string which a mother ties around the waist of her child and which is worn throughout childhood. This fetish is for health. The Roman Catholic priests, in the early history of their missions on the Congo, substituted for this health-fetish a string made from the fibres of a palm that had been blessed on Palm Sunday. There is no evidence, however, that the substitution of the Roman fetish for the African fetish resulted in any marked improvement in the health of the natives. A charm is not necessarily a physical object—like the amulet. In Africa, as among the superstitious everywhere else, it may be a word or action, a sign or symbol, a formula or incantation. To count the number of persons present on certain occasions will cause the death of at least one of them within the year. The utterance of the word _salt_ at the wrong moment has been known to produce appalling consequences. The fetish proper represents a more intelligible form of belief than the charm or amulet. One common kind of fetish implies animism; that is, that the various objects of nature have each a life analogous to that of man to which their phenomena are due. This life is inseparable from the object. The eagle’s talon, the wing feathers of any bird, the claw of the leopard, the teeth of animals, and all those objects which are associated with that which is desirable or that which is fearful are valuable fetishes, because one may avail himself of the powers inherent in such objects. The African sometimes says that the surf is in a nasty temper; and when he uses this expression he is not speaking figuratively. The wind talks to the forest, and the forest talks to the wind. The tornado is often nothing more than a quarrel between mountain and forest, lightning against wind; and, as one writer expresses it, we ourselves may get hit with the bits. Not that they are angry at us, but at each other, and we had best keep out of the way.