Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 edition. Excerpt: ... 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 fmm a. frmnhlp. origin, Tfifer11! its niye land (Portugal) to the charms and amulets worn ' for Juck, ' and to relics of saints, ' fetish' grew to such amazing proportions when transplanted to W est African soil, that" at Tast "there"was nothing conrietoPheO!Irrcan rellinQn to which itjvas jlol_applied. De Brosses introduced Fetichisme as a general descriptive term (8), supposing the word to be connected with chose fee, fatum. Comte1 employed it to describe the universal religious tendency to which Dr. Tylor has 1 Philosophic Positive. 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;1 and Lippert (46) defines Fetishism as aelief in the souls of the departed coming to dwell in any thing that is tangible or visible in heaven or earth.' Although Miss Kingsley (39, 139) expresses regret that the word Fetish 'is getting very loosely used in England, ' she scarcely helps forward the work of distinction and arrangement when a few lines further on she announces ' When I say Fetish, or Ju Ju, I mean the religion of the natives of West Africa.' Subsequently she overstepped her own definition, describing the secret societies as 'pure fetish' (41, 139), although they 'are not essentially...
