Chapter 9

That in the phenomena of fetichism we encounter desires other than religious is beyond dispute: the use of a fetich is, as Dr. Nassau says, "to aid the possessor in the accomplishment of some specific wish" (_Fetichism in West Africa_, p. 82); that is, of any specific wish. Now, a fetich is, as we have seen, an inanimate object and something more. What more? In actual truth, nothing more than the fact that it is "involuntarily associated with what is about to happen, with the possibility of attaining the desired end." But to the possessor the something more, it may be said, is the fact that it is not merely an "inanimate" but also a spirit, or the habitation of a spiritual being. When, however, we reflect that fetichism goes back to the animistic stage of human thought, in which all the things that we term inanimate are believed to be animated by spirits, it is obvious that we require some differentia to mark off those things (animated by spirits) which are fetiches from those things (animated by spirits) {117} which are not. And the differentia is, of course, that fetiches are spirits, or objects animated by spirits, which will aid the possessor in the accomplishment of some specific wish, and are thought to be willing so to aid, owing to the fact that by an involuntary association of ideas they become connected in the worshipper's mind with the possibility of attaining the end he has in view at the moment. To recognise fetichism, then, in its simplest if not in its most primitive form, all we need postulate is animism--the belief that all things are animated by spirits--and the process of very natural selection which has already been described. At this stage in the history of fetichism it is especially difficult to judge whether the fetich is the spirit or the object animated by the spirit. As Dr. Haddon says (p. 83), "Just as the human body and soul form one individual, so the material object and its occupying spirit or power form one individual, more vague, perhaps, but still with many attributes distinctively human. It possesses personality and will ... it possesses most of the human passions,--anger, revenge, also generosity and gratitude; it is within reach of influence and may be benevolent, hence to be deprecated and placated, and its aid enlisted."

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A more advanced stage in the history of fetichism is that which is reached by reflection on the fact that a fetich not unfrequently ceases to prosper the undertakings of its possessor in the way he expected it to do. On the principles of animism, everything that is--whether animate, or inanimate according to our notions--is made up of spirit, or soul, and body. In the case of man, when he dies, the spirit leaves the body. When, therefore, a fetich ceases to act, the explanation by analogy is that the spirit has left the body, the inanimate, with which it was originally associated; and when that is the case, then, as we learn from Miss Kingsley (_Travels in West Africa_, pp. 304-305), "the little thing you kept the spirit in is no more use now, and only fit to sell to a white man as 'a big curio.'" The fact that, in native belief, what we call an inanimate thing may lose its soul and become really dead is shown by Miss Kingsley in a passage quoted by Dr. Haddon: "Everything that he," the native, "knows by means of his senses he regards as a twofold entity--part spirit, part not spirit, or, as we should say, matter; the connection of a certain spirit with a certain mass of matter, he holds, is not permanent. He will point out to you a lightning-struck tree, and tell {119} you its spirit has been broken; he will tell you when the cooking-pot has been broken, that it has lost its spirit" (_Folk-Lore_, VIII, 141). We might safely infer then that as any object may lose its spirit, so too may an object which has been chosen as a fetich; even if we had not, as we have, direct testimony to the belief.

Next, when it is believed that an object may lose its spirit and become dead indeed, there is room and opportunity for the belief to grow that its spirit may pass into some other object: that there may be a transmigration of spirits. And when this belief arises, a fresh stage in the history of fetichism is evolved. And the fresh stage is evolved in accordance with the law that governs the whole evolution of fetichism. That law is that a fetich is an object believed to aid its possessor in attaining the end he desires. In the earliest stage of its history anything which happens to arrest a man's attention when he is in a state of expectancy "is involuntarily associated with what is about to happen," and so becomes a fetich. In the most developed stage of fetichism, men are not content to wait until they stumble across a fetich, and when they do so to say, "Ha! ha! art thou there?" Their mental attitude becomes {120} interrogative: "Ha! ha! where art thou?" They no longer wait to stumble across a fetich, they proceed to make one; and for that procedure a belief in the transmigration of spirits is essential. An object, a habitation for the spirit, is prepared; and he is invited, conjúred, or cónjured, into it. If he is conjúred into it, the attitude of the man who invites him is submissive; if cónjured, the mental attitude of the performer is one of superiority. Colonel Ellis throughout all his careful enquiries found that "so great is the fear of giving possible offence to any superhuman agent" that (in the region of his observation) we may well believe that even the makers of fetiches did not assume to command the spirits. But elsewhere, in other regions, it is impossible to doubt but that the owners of fetiches not only conjúre the spirits into the objects, but also apply coercion to them when they fail to aid their possessor in the accomplishment of his wishes. That, I take it, is the ultimate stage in the evolution, the fine flower, of fetichism. And it is not religion, it has no value as religion, or rather its value is anti-religious. Even if we were to accept as a definition of religion that it is the conciliation of beings conceived to be superior, we should be compelled by {121} the definition to say that fetichism in its eventual outcome is not religion, for the attitude of the owner towards his fetich is then one of superiority, and his method is, when conciliation fails, to apply coercion.

But it may perhaps be argued that fetichism, except in what I have termed its ultimate evolution, is religion and has religious value; or, to put it otherwise, that what I have represented as the eventual outcome is really a perversion or the decline of fetichism. Then, in the fetichism which is or represents the primitive religion of mankind we meet, according to Professor Höffding, "religion under the guise of desire." Now, not all desires are religious; and the question, which is purely a question of fact, arises whether the desires which fetichism subserves are religious. And in using the word "religious" I will not here place any extravagant meaning on the word; I will take it in the meaning which would be understood by the community in which the owner of a fetich dwells himself. In the tribes described by Colonel Ellis, for instance, there are worshipped personal gods having proper names; and the worship is served by duly appointed priests; and the worshippers consist of a body of {122} persons whose welfare the god has at heart. Such are some of the salient features of what all students of the science of religion would include under the head of the religion of those tribes. Now amongst those same tribes the fetich, or _suhman_, as it is termed by them, is found; and there are several features which make a fetich quite distinguishable from any of the gods which are worshipped there. Thus, the fetich has no body of worshippers: it is the private property, of its owner, who alone makes offerings to it. Its _raison d'être_, its special and only function, is to subserve the private wishes of its owner. In so far as he makes offerings to it he may be called its priest; but he is not, as in the case of the priests of the gods who are worshipped there, the representative of the community or congregation, for a fetich has no plurality of worshippers; and none of the priests of the gods will have anything to do with it. Next, "though offerings are made to the _suhman_ by its owner, they are made in private" (Jevons, _History of Religion_, p. 165)--there is no public worship--and "public opinion does not approve of them." The interests and the desires which the fetich exists to promote are not those of the community: they are antisocial, for, as Colonel Ellis {123} tells us, "one of the special attributes of a _suhman_ is to procure the death of any person whom its worshipper may wish to have removed"--indeed "the most important function of the _suhman_ appears to be to work evil against those who have injured or offended its worshipper."

Thus, a very clear distinction exists between the worship of a fetich and the worship of the gods. It is not merely that the fetich is invoked occasionally in aid of antisocial desires: nothing can prevent the worshipper of a god, if the worshipper be bad enough, from praying for that which he ought not to pray for. It is that the gods of the community are there to sanction and further all desires which are for the good of the community, and that the fetich is there to further desires which are not for the good of the community,--hence it is that "public opinion does not approve of them." At another stage of religious evolution, it becomes apparent and is openly pronounced that neither does the god of the community approve of them; and then fetichism, like the sin of witchcraft, is stamped out more or less. But amongst the tribes who have only reached the point of religious progress attained by the natives of West Africa, public opinion has {124} only gone so far as to express disapproval, not to declare war.

If, then, we are to hold to the view of Professor Höffding and of Dr. Haddon, that fetichism is in its essence, or was at the beginning, religious in its nature, though it may be perverted into something non-religious or anti-religious, we must at any rate admit that it has become non-religious not only in the case of those fetichists who assume an attitude of superiority and command to their fetiches, but also in the earlier stage of evolution when the fetichist preserves an attitude of submission and conciliation towards his fetich, but assumes the attitude only for the purpose of realising desires which are anti-social and recognised to be anti-religious.

But, if we take--as I think we must take--that line of argument, the conclusion to which it will bring us is fairly clear and is not far off. The differentia or rather that differentia which characteristically marks off the fetich from the god is the nature of the desires which each exists to promote; the function which each exists to fulfil, the end which is there for each to subserve. But the ends are different. Not only are they different, they are antagonistic. And the process of evolution does {125} but bring out the antagonism, it does not create it. It was there from the beginning. From the moment there was society, there were desires which could only be realised at the cost and to the loss of society, as well as desires in the realisation of which the good of society was realised. The assistance of powers other than human might be sought; and the nature of the power which was sought was determined by the end or purpose for which its aid was employed or invoked--if for the good of society, it was approved by society; if not, not. Its function, the end it subserved, determined its value for society--determined whether public opinion should approve or disapprove of it, whether it was a god of the community or the fetich of an individual. Society can only exist where there is a certain community of purpose among its members; and can only continue to exist where anti-social tendencies are to some extent suppressed or checked by force of public opinion.

Fetichism, then, in its tendency and in its purpose, in the function which it performs and the end at which it aims is not only distinguishable from religion, it is antagonistic to it, from the earliest period of its history to the latest. Religion is social, an {126} affair of the community; fetichism is anti-social, condemned by the community. Public opinion, expressing the moral sentiments of the community as well as its religious feeling, pronounces both moral and religious disapproval of the man who uses a _suhman_ for its special purpose of causing death--committing murder. Fetichism is offensive to the morality as well as to the religion even of the native. To seek the origin of religion in fetichism is as vain as to seek the origin of morality in the selfish and self-seeking tendencies of man. There is no need to enquire whether fetichism is historically prior to religion, or whether religion is historically prior to fetichism. Man, as long as he has lived in societies, must have had desires which were incompatible with the welfare of the community as well as desires which promoted its welfare. The powers which are supposed to care whether the community fares well are the gods of the community; and their worship is the religion of the community. The powers which have no such care are not gods, nor is their worship--if coercion or cajolery can be called worship--religion. The essence of fetichism on its external side is that the owner of the fetich alone has access {127} to it, alone can pray to it, alone can offer sacrifices to it. It is therefore in its inward essence directly destructive of the unity of interests and purposes that society demands and religion promotes. Perhaps it would be going too far to say that the practice of making prayers and offerings to a fetich is borrowed from religious worship: they are the natural and instinctive method of approaching any power which is capable of granting or refusing what we desire. It is the quarter to which they are addressed, and the end for which they are employed, that makes the difference between them. It is the fact that in the one case they are, and in the other are not, addressed to the quarter to which they ought to be addressed, and employed for the end for which they ought to be employed, that makes the difference in religious value between them.

If we bear in mind the simple fact that fetichism is condemned by the religious and moral feelings of the communities in which it exists, we shall not fall into the mistake of regarding fetichism either as the primitive religion of mankind or as a stage of religious development or as "a basis from which many other modes of religious thought have been developed."

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Professor Höffding, holding that fetichism is the primitive religion, out of which polytheism was developed, adopts Usener's theory as to the mode of its evolution. "The fetich," Professor Höffding says (p. 140), "is only the provisional and momentary dwelling-place of a spirit. As Hermann Usener has strikingly called it, it is 'the god of a moment.'" But though Professor Höffding adopts this definition of a fetich, it is obvious that the course of his argument requires us to understand it as subject to a certain limitation. His argument in effect is that fetichism is not polytheism, but something different, something out of which polytheism was evolved. And the difference is that polytheism means a plurality of gods, whereas fetichism knows no gods, but only spirits. Inasmuch then as, on the theory--whether it is held by Höffding or by anybody else--that the spirits of fetichism become the gods of polytheism, there must be differences between the spirits of the one and the gods of the other, let us enquire what the differences are supposed to be.

First, there is the statement that a fetich is the "god of a moment," by which must be meant that the spirits which, so long as they are momentary and {129} temporary, are fetiches, must come to be permanent if they are to attain to the rank of gods.

But on this point Dr. Haddon differs. He is quite clear that a fetich may be worshipped permanently without ceasing to be a fetich. And it is indeed abundantly clear that an object only ceases to be worshipped when its owner is convinced that it is not really a fetich; as long as he is satisfied that it is a fetich, he continues its cult--and he continues it because it is his personal property, because he, and not the rest of the community, has access to it.

Next, Höffding argues that it is from these momentary fetiches that special or specialised deities--"departmental gods," as Mr. Andrew Lang has termed them--arise. And these "specialised divinities constitute an advance on gods of the moment" (p. 142). Now, what is implied in this argument, what is postulated but not expressed, is that a fetich has only one particular thing which it can do. A departmental god can only do one particular sort of thing, has one specialised function. A departmental god is but a fetich advanced one stage in the hierarchy of divine beings. Therefore the function of the fetich in the first instance was specialised {130} and limited. But there it is that the _à priori_ argument comes into collision with the actual facts. A fetich, when it presents itself to a man, assists him in the particular business on which he is at the moment engaged. But it only continues to act as a fetich, provided that it assists him afterwards and in other matters also. The desires of the owner are not limited, and consequently neither are his expectations; the business of the fetich is to procure him general prosperity (Haddon, p. 83). As far as fetiches are concerned, it is simply reversing the facts to suppose that it is because one fetich can only do one thing, that many fetiches are picked up. Many objects are picked up on the chance of their proving fetiches, because if the object turns out really to be a fetich it will bring its owner good luck and prosperity generally--there is no knowing what it may do. But it is only to its owner that it brings prosperity--not to other people, not to the community, for the community is debarred access to it.

The next difference between fetichism and polytheism, according to Höffding, is that the gods of polytheism have developed that personality which is not indeed absolutely wanting in the spirits of fetichism but can hardly be said to be properly {131} there. "The transition," he says, "from momentary and special gods to gods which can properly be called personal is one of the most important transitions in the history of religion. It denotes the transition from animism to polytheism" (p. 145). And one of the outward signs that the transition has been effected is, as Usener points out with special emphasis, "that only at a certain stage of evolution, _i.e._, on the appearance of polytheism, do the gods acquire proper names" (_ib._ 147).

Now, this argument, I suggest, seeks to make, or to make much of, a difference between fetichism and polytheism which scarcely exists, and so far as it does exist is not the real difference between them. It seeks to minimise, if not to deny, the personality of the fetich, in order to exalt that of the gods of polytheism. And then this difference in degree of personality, this transition from the one degree to the other, is exhibited as "one of the most important transitions in the history of religion." The question therefore is first whether the difference is so great, and next whether it is the real difference between fetichism and religion in the polytheistic stage.

The difference in point of personality between the spirits of fetichism and the gods of polytheism is not {132} absolute. The fetich, according to Dr. Haddon, "_possesses personality_ and will, it has also many human characters. It possesses most of the human passions, anger, revenge, also generosity and gratitude; it is within reach of influence and may be benevolent, is hence to be deprecated and placated, and its aid to be enlisted" (p. 83); "the fetich is worshipped, prayed to, sacrificed to, and talked with" (p. 89).