Note 50 — COMTE.
Reading edition
Footnote 50
:
(return)
Take, for instance, the following description of fetishism in Africa. It is the best which just now falls under our hand, and perhaps a longer search would not find a better. Those only who never read The Doctor, will be surprised to find it quoted on a grave occasion:—
"The name Fetish, though used by the negroes themselves, is known to be a corrupt application of the Portuguese word for witchcraft, feitiço; the vernacular name is Bossum, or Bossifoe. Upon the Gold Coast every nation has its own, every village, every family, and every individual. A great hill, a rock any way remarkable for its size or shape, or a large tree, is generally the national Fetish. The king's is usually the largest tree in his country. They who choose or change one, take the first thing they happen to see, however worthless—a stick, a stone, the bone of a beast, bird, or fish, unless the worshipper takes a fancy for something of better appearance, and chooses a horn, or the tooth of some large animal. The ceremony of consecration he performs himself, assembling his family, washing the new object of his devotion, and sprinkling them with the water. He has thus a household or personal god, in which he has as much faith as the Papist in his relics, and with as much reason. Barbot says that some of the Europeans on that coast not only encouraged their slaves in this superstition, but believed in it, and practised it themselves."—Vol. V. p. 136.