‘Human eyeballs, particularly of white men, are a great charm. This, I fancy, is to secure the man “that lives in your eyes” for the service of the village’ ([40, 305]).
Sometimes there is a tangible connection between the object chosen for the fetish and the spirit occupying it. Thus among the Gold Coast natives the object which is entered by the subordinate spirit of Sasabonsum must be taken from the habitat of a Sasabonsum, from a place, that is, which is marked with red earth, where the red earth marks the blood of the victim of a Sasabonsum ([15, 109]).
3. It may consist of a sign or token representing an ideal notion or being, and here it is difficult to draw any distinction between fetishism and idolatry, ‘for a small line and a few streaks of colour may change a fetish into an idol’ ([61, 77]). Certainly the lower forms of idolatry present the aspect of fetishism, but the true fetish is not shaped to resemble the spirit it represents, and the true idol is only the symbol, not the vessel, vehicle, or instrument of deity. At the same time, an image may be worshipped as a fetish, and regarded as a material body provided for a spirit; or a fetish, being regarded merely as the symbol or representative of a spirit, seems to develop the earliest form of idolatry ([71, ii. 169]). The distinction lies in the attitude of mind in which the objects are worshipped, and no objective differentiation is possible, for the object will be a fetish for one worshipper and a pure symbol of a spirit to another.
Stone worship is often pure fetishism, the stone being regarded as the tangible sign or token of a spirit or power to which worship is addressed. But it advances beyond the limits of fetishism if a general spirit, or a god of a community, while worshipped in the form of a stone, is also believed to animate other objects. The animating force of a fetish must be individual, and cannot animate more than one object at a time. When the spirits of the suhman charms ([15, 99]) are considered to be individual spirits dependent upon Sasabonsum they are fetishes; if the spirit of Sasabonsum were supposed to animate all the suhman charms they could not properly be called fetishes.
4. A fetish is credited with mysterious powers owing to its being the habitation, temporary or permanent, of a spiritual being.
This sounds like a definition of the principle of animism, and so it may be, for fetishism is animism, seen, as it were, from the other end and seen in detail. Animism sees all things animated by spirits; fetishism sees a spirit incorporated in an individual object.
But there is this distinction, that the spirit which is believed to occupy the fetish is a different conception from the spirit of the animistic theory; it is not the soul or vital power belonging to the object, and inherent in it, from which the virtue is derived, but a spirit or power attracted to and incorporated in it, while separable from it. The spirit of the fetish is also distinct from a god, as it can animate one object only, while a god can manifest his power in various forms.
Thus in Bosman’s account of the Benin fetish quoted above, he talks of ‘the pipe where the idol is lodged,’ that is the material habitation into which the spirit has been lured by some means of attraction. Miss Kingsley, describing a fetish or juju, says ‘it is not a doll or toy, and has far more affinity to the image of a saint, inasmuch as it is not venerated for itself, or treasured because of its prettiness, but only because it is the residence, or the occasional haunt, of a spirit’ ([40, 287]).
The material objects which form the tutelary deities or Bohsŭm of the natives of the Gold Coast are not symbols of gods which usually reside elsewhere; each is the actual receptacle or ordinary abiding-place of an indwelling god. One may be a wooden figure, another a stone, a third a covered calabash or an earthen pot, containing a mixture of blood and earth ([15, 80]).
The best example of this class is provided by the suhman.