FETISH

or FETICH, a word first brought into use by De Bro es, in his work Du Cul e des Dieux Fétiches (1760), who was the first to draw attention to fetishism as a branch of the study of religion. The term is derived from the Portuguese feitico, magic, a word which expre ed the Portuguese opinion of the religion of the natives of the west coast of Africa. The Portuguese gave this name to the idols of the negroes of the Senegal, 421 FETTES COLLEGE and afterwards the word received a more extensive meaning. i A fetish is any object which is regarded with a feeling of awe, as having mysterious powers residing in it, but without any consciousne in the exercise of them. The fetish may be animate, as a cock, a serpent, .; or inanimate, as a river, a tooth, a shell. Fetish worship prevails in Guinea and other parts of the west coast of Africa. Im addition to the common fetish of the tribe every individual may have one of his own. To this he offers up prayers, and if they are not heard he punishes it, or perhaps throws it away, or breaks it in pieces. —BIBLIOGRAPHY: HK. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture; F. Schultze, Fetichism; R. H. Na au, Fetichism in _ West Africa; Sir J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough.