[235] Deniker, “Les Kalmouks,” Rev. d’Anthr., 1884, p. 671.
[236] De Quatrefages, L’espèce humaine, 2nd ed., p. 356, Paris, 1890.
[237] E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. i.
[238] These Yahgans give the name of “Kachpik” vaguely to: 1, very wicked imaginary beings living in the depth of the forests, and, 2, every person who has a strange or wicked character. They give the name of “Hanuch” to: 1, imaginary beings with an eye at the back of the head and no hair, and, 2, to madmen or individuals living alone in the forests. It is the belief in these three or four imaginary beings to which all religious manifestations of the Yahgans may be reduced. (Hyades and Deniker, loc. cit., p. 253.)
[239] R. Woodthorpe, Journ. Anthr. Inst., vol. xxvi., No 1, August 1896. In Yorkshire the country people call the night butterfly (sphinx) “soul,” and in Ireland butterflies are the souls of ancestors (L. Gomme, Ethnology in Folklore).
[240] Modigliani, Un Viaggio a Nias, p. 277, Milan, 1890. Besides, the Nias admit, like many other peoples, three souls in man; that which manifests itself by the breath is comparable to the “double” of the ancient Egyptians.
[241] The word “fetichism” is a corruption of the Portuguese term feitiço, “charm,” derived probably from the Latin factitius, in the sense “full of magical artifices,” which the first navigators on the coast of Guinea applied to the fetiches venerated by the Negroes. Des Brosses was the first to introduce, in 1760, the term “fetichism” to denote the belief in fetiches. Auguste Comte gave a much more extended meaning to the word, to denote a religious state opposed to polytheism and monotheism. To-day the fetichism of Auguste Comte is the animism of English ethnographers, of which true fetichism forms only a part. (E. Tylor, Prim. Cult., vol. ii., p. 143.)
[242] In certain cases, fetiches are supposed to be animated with power of movement; thus the staffs which negro sorcerers put into the hands of men in convulsions, caused by wild dances, are reputed to draw these men in their mad career, and to direct them in the search of persons accused of crime. Similarly, the two staffs which the Siberian Shamans hold in their hands during their exorcisms are supposed to draw them, like horses driven at full gallop, towards regions inhabited by spirits.
[243] Macpherson, quoted by Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. ii., p. 325.
[244] E. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. i., p. 427.