The dividing line of morality between the fetich doctor and the Christian physician is a narrow but deep chasm. The latter knows that, with all his skill in physiology and the infallibility of his drug’s indication, results lie in the hand of God, with whom are the issues of life and death, who has sovereignly and beneficently endowed certain plants or minerals with properties befitting certain pathological conditions. The former ignores God, and firmly believes that his own enchantments have subsidized the power of a spirit, so that the spirit itself is to enter into the body of the patient, and, searching through his vitals, drive out the antagonizing spirit, which is the supposed actual cause of the disease. The etiology of disease is to the native obscure. His attempts at explanation are somewhat inconsistent; the sickness is spoken of as a disease, and yet the patient is said to be sick because of the presence of an evil spirit, which being driven out by the magician’s benevolent spirit the patient will recover.
The drug exhibited with the ceremonies by which the friendly spirit is induced to enter the body is entirely secondary and adjuvant, and is not supposed to be any more efficient in producing a cure than was the Old Testament incense of the Temple ritual in obtaining an answer to prayer.
But the drug is often a really valuable medicine, and does cure the patient. Yet the native Christian must be forbidden to submit to its use, because of the invariably associated heathen ceremonies. The magician alone knows from what plant the drug came, and he positively refuses to administer it unless its associated ceremonies are carefully observed. For the Christian to consent to do that, is to “kiss the calves”[43] of idolatrous Israel, or to partake of the “meats offered to idols.”[44]
The manner of practising the white art by the magic doctor may be purely ritual without his making or the patient’s wearing any material amulet, but the performance is none the less fetich in its character.
According to the usual procedure an article is prepared with incantations referring to spiritual influences to be worn by the applicant either as a cure for an actually existing disease or any other expected danger, or, irrespective of disease, for the attainment of a desired object or for success in some cherished plan. Its application may be as limitless as the entire range of human desire.
The first step in the process is the selection of an object in which to enclose the various articles deemed necessary to attract and please the spiritual being whose aid is to be invoked. In this selection it is not probable that superstitious or other moral consideration enters. It is simply a matter of taste as to shape or availability or convenience. The article usually chosen is a horn of a gazelle or young antelope, or of a goat. The ground for the choice is availability; those animals are common. The horns are preserved and are therefore always at hand. They are small, light, and easily carried. They are durable, not liable to rust and decay, as would be an article of vegetable origin, and they have a convenient cavity.
The next step in the process is the selection of the substances which are to be packed into the hollow of the horn. These are of both animal and vegetable origin, but mostly vegetable. They may be very absurd to our civilized view, they may be disgusting and even filthy; but they are all ranked as “medicine,” have actually some fitness to the end in view, as described in the previous chapter, and are to be as carefully regarded as are the ingredients of a physician’s prescription by a druggist. Their absurdity must not militate against the view of them as “medicine,” even to a civilized mind. We are not to forget that, all superstitious and fetich ideas aside, our own pharmacopœia one hundred years ago contained animal products of supposed therapeutic value that were clumsy, annoying, and even disgusting. Indeed, it is only in very modern medicine that the profession have thought it worth while to regard the matter of agreeable look and pleasant taste. Homœopathy, even if we do not all believe in it, must be given credit for at least eliminating nauseous taste from the attributes of a good medicine, even of an emetic.
From the wide range of substances, mineral, animal, and vegetable, the magic doctor takes generally some plant. Indeed, so associated is the doctor’s thought of a tree and some spirit belonging to it, that an educated and very intelligent native chief at Gabun who still clings to many heathen practices, of whom recently I asked an explanation of fetich from the native point of view, said sententiously, “A principle of fetich comes from trees.” This carried to me very little meaning. I asked him to explain at length. He did so. He said that in the long ago, while still his ancestors knew of God and had not entirely forgotten to give him some kind of worship, their medicine men were botanists, and, like Solomon, “spake of trees.” The herbs and barks they used were employed solely for their own intrinsically curative qualities. But as people became more degraded and “like people, like priest,” the medicine men added a ritual of song, dances, incantations, and auguries by which to dignify their profession with mystery. As they grew in power, they added claims of spiritual influence, by which to impress their patients with fear and to exact obedience even from kings, until finally the idea of a spirit as the efficient agent in the cure was substituted for that of the drug itself, and fetich belief dominated all.
The reason for the choice of one tree rather than another in a given case of sickness is almost impossible to find out. Perhaps there is a vague tradition of the fact that it was used long ago by those who first happened to discover that it had real medicinal quality, and the present generation continues to use it, though having forgotten what that quality was, or even that it had any intrinsic quality of its own, their etiology of disease assigning as the cause of all sickness the antagonistic presence of an evil spirit.
The laity, heathen and Christian, positively do not know from what particular tree the leaf or piece of bark was obtained, and they would not be able to recognize it even if they were allowed to see it. They see only the dry powder or ashes. Even if the heathen laity were able to tell me, they will not do so. Even if they were bribed, I would have no certainty that they were showing me the plant that was actually used; for they would know that I would have no means of comparing specimens or of proving their deception. The native will tell foreigners many things for friendship or for regard, and he enjoys conversation with us; but superstition slams his heart’s door shut when he is asked to reveal secrets of the spirits. His prompt thought is: “White man’s knowledge has given him power. There is little left of land, authority, women, or wealth in my country that he has not seized. Shall I add to his power by telling him the secrets of my spirits?” Of course the magic doctor will not tell. That would be giving himself entirely away.