The skull or other relic of the ancestor differs from the common fetish in that the possessor of the former cannot compel the ancestor to do his will; he can only persuade him, or induce his help and favour by offerings and kind treatment. But the possessor of the common fetish does not make offerings to it; the fetish is under his control and he can compel the spirit within it to serve him. If it should disobey him he will punish it. The usual punishment is to hang it in smoke. Fetishes have a horror of smoke. I do not know that the native ever punishes his ancestor for refusing a favour. If he should leave the skull in a cold or wet place, or should neglect offerings of food, the ancestor will suffer discomfort, but the discomfort is slight compared with the evil that he will send upon his undutiful son as a punishment for such neglect. In the proper fetish (if the word fetish be restricted in its meaning) the spirit resides within the object but is not a part of it, and may leave it, the fetish being then of no more use. A still lower form of fetish, implying animism, is that in which the spirit of the fetish is its own life, and is related to it as the soul to the body. This latter fetish however is different from a mere amulet or charm; for the charm operates not by any intelligence within itself but by some sympathetic influence without. Such, for instance, is the horseshoe which the negro in our South hangs over his door for luck. The charm, the fetish, and the relic represent ascending grades of belief. But they are all confused in the mind of the African, just as we confuse them under the one term _fetishism_. As long as we live in Africa, however, we do not often speak of fetishes, but of _medicines_: for this is in strict accord with native usage. The native calls his fetishes medicines, and his medicines fetishes, and in his mind there is no difference. The remedial power of medicine is supernatural, due either to magic or to a spirit residing within it. Upon swallowing the medicine, the spirit of the medicine, like a policeman, chases through the body after the spirit of the disease until it strangles it or drives it out. Of course the white man’s medicines are fetishes also.