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Fetish (Portuguese: feitico, 'a charm',
'sorcery', 'enchantment' (whence the English fetish); adjective, 'made by
art', 'artificial', 'skillfully contrived'; Latin factitious, 'made by art',
'artful by magic'). Among the American Indians an object, large or small,
natural or artificial, regarded as possessing consciousness, volition and
immortal life, and especially orenda (q. v.), or magic power, the essential
characteristic, which enables the object to accomplish, in addition to those
that are usual, abnormal results in a mysterious manner. Apparently in any
specific case the distinctive function and sphere of action of the fetish
depends largely on the nature of the object which is supposed to contain it. It
is the imagined possession of this potent mysterious power that causes an object
to be regarded as indispensable to the welfare of its possessor.
In the belief of the Indians, all things are animate and incarnate men, beasts,
lands, waters, rocks, plants, trees, stars, winds, clouds, and night and all
possess volition and immortal life; yet many of these are held in perpetual
bondage by weird spells of some mighty enchantment. So, although lakes and seas
may writhe in billows, they can not traverse the earth, while brooks and rivers
may run and bound over the land, yet even they may be held by the potent magic
power of the god of winter. Mountains and hills may throb and quake with pain
and grief, but they can not travel over the earth because they are held in
thraldom by the powerful spell of some potent en chanter. Thus it is that rocks,
trees, roots, stocks and stones, bones, the limbs and parts of the body, and the
various bodies of nature are verily the living tombs of diverse beings and
spirits. Of such is the kingdom of the fetish, for even the least of these maybe
chosen. More over, a fetish is an object which may also represent a vision, a
dream, a thought, or an action.
The following extract from Cushing s Zuñi
Fetiches (2d Rep. B. A. E., 1883) will show the reputed connection
between the object and its quickener, between the object and the thing it
represents. In speaking of the Two Sun Children, Gushing says: "Now that the
surface of the earth was hardened, even the animals of prey, powerful and like
the fathers (gods) themselves, would have devoured the children of men; and the
Two thought it was not well that they should all be permitted to live, for, said
they, alike will the children of men and the children of the animals of prey
multiply themselves. The animals of prey are provided with talons and teeth ;
men are but poor, the finished beings of earth, therefore the weaker.
"Whenever they came across the path way of one of these animals, were he a great
mountain lion or but a mere mole, they struck him with the fire of lightning
which they carried in their magic shield. Thlu! and instantly he was
shriveled and burned into stone.
"Then said they to the animals that they had changed into stone: That ye may not
be evil unto men, but that ye may be a great good unto them, have we changed you
into rock everlasting. By the magic breath of prey, by the heart that shall
endure forever within you, shall ye be made to serve instead of to devour
mankind."
"Thus was the surface of the earth hardened and scorched and many of all kinds
of beings changed to stone. Thus, too, it happened that we find, here and there
throughout the world, their forms, sometimes large like the beings them selves,
sometimes shriveled and distorted. And we often see among the rocks the forms of
many beings that live no longer, which shows us that all was different in the
days of the new.
"Of these petrifactions, which are of course mere concretions or strangely
eroded rock forms, the Zuni say, Whomsoever of us may be met with the light of
such great good fortune may see (discover, find) them and should treasure them
for the sake of the sacred (magic) power which was given them in the days of the
new. Such is the Zuni philosophy of the fetish.
A fetish is acquired by a person, a family, or a people for the purpose of
promoting welfare. In return, the fetish requires from its owner worship in the
form of prayer, sacrifice, feasts, and protection, and from its votaries it
receives ill or good treatment in accordance with the character of its behavior
toward them. Some fetishes are regarded as more efficacious than others. The
fetish which loses its repute as a promoter of welfare gradually becomes useless
and may de generate into a sacred object a charm, an amulet, or a talisman and
finally into a mere ornament. Then other fetishes are acquired, to be subjected
to the same severe test of efficiency in promoting the well-being of their
possessors.
The fetish is clearly segregated from the group of beings called tutelars, or
guardian spirits, since it may be bought or sold, loaned or inherited, while, so
far as known, the tutelar is never sold, loaned, or, with the Iroquois,
inherited among the Santee and the Muskhogean and Iroquoian tribes the personal
tutelar, having a different origin, is scrupulously discriminated from all those
objects and beings which may be called fetishes. The tutelar has a particular
name as a class of beings. Rev. John Eastman says that this is true of the
Santee, and it is probably true of many other tribes. Some fetishes are
inherited from kindred, while others are bought from neighboring tribes at a
great price, thus constituting a valuable article of intertribal commerce. It is
also acquired by choice for multifarious reasons.
A person may have one or many fetishes. The name fetish is also applied to most
of the articles found in the medicine sack of the shaman, the pindikosan
of the Chippewa. These are commonly otter, snake, owl, bird, and other skins;
roots, bark, and berries of many kinds; potent powders, and a heterogeneous
collection of other things employed by the shaman.
A fetish is not a product of a definite phase of religious activity, much less
is it the particular prerogative of any plane of human culture; for along with
the adoration of the fetish goes the worship of the sun, moon, earth, life,
trees, rivers, water, mountains, and storms as the embodiment of as many
personalities assign the fetish to the artificial stage of religion sometimes
called hecastotheism. The fetish must be carefully distinguished from the
tutelar of every person. Among the Iroquois these are known by distinct names,
indicative of their functions: ochina‘kěn’da’
for fetish, and oiäron' for the tutelar.
Mooney says, in describing the fetish, that it may be a bone, a feather, a
carved or painted stick, a stone arrowhead, a curious fossil or concretion, a
tuft of hair, a necklace of red berries, the stuffed skin of a lizard, the dried
hand of an enemy, a small bag of pounded charcoal mixed with human blood
anything, in fact, which the owner s medicine dream or imagination might
suggest, no matter how uncouth or unaccountable, provided it be easily portable
and attachable. The fetish might be the inspiration of a dream or the gift of a
medicine-man, or even atrophy taken from a slain enemy, or a bird, animal, or
reptile; but, however insignificant in itself, it had always, in the owner's
mind at least, some symbolic connection with occult power. It might be fastened
to the scalplock as a pendant, attached to some part of the dress, hung from the
bridle bit, concealed between the covers of a shield, or guarded in a special
repository in the dwelling. Mothers sometimes tied the fetish to the child's
cradle.
A fetish noted among the Sioux is described as the image of a little man, which
was enclosed in a cylindrical wooden case and enveloped in sacred swan's down
(Riggs). A hunting and divining fetish among the Cherokee consisted of a trans
parent crystal, which its owner kept wrapped up in buckskin in a sacred cave and
occasionally fed by rubbing over it the blood of a deer. The Pueblo tribes have
numerous war and hunting fetishes of stone, small figurines cut to resemble
various predatory animals, with eyes of inlaid turquoise and one or more arrow
heads bound at the back or amulet sometimes took the form of a small figurine of
a bird or other animal swift in~ flight, as the hawk; silent in movement, as the
owl; or expert in dodging, as the dragonfly. In all tribes the nature and
mysterious origin of the personal fetish or medicine were the secret of the
individual owner or of the maker, who, as a rule, revealed it only to one
formally chosen as heir to the mystic possession and pledged in turn to the same
secrecy."
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Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, Frederick Webb Hodge, 1906
