FullReads

* * * * *

Another indirect verification is that we thus get a clear conception of Fetichism in general. Under the fetichistic mode of thought, surrounding objects and agents are regarded as having powers more or less definitely personal in their natures; and the current interpretation is, that human intelligence, in its early stages, is obliged to conceive of their powers under this form. I have myself hitherto accepted this interpretation; though always with a sense of dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction was, I think, well grounded. The theory is scarcely a theory properly so-called; but rather, a restatement in other words. Uncivilized men do habitually form anthropomorphic conceptions of surrounding things; and this observed general fact is transformed into the theory that at first they must so conceive them–a theory for which the psychological justification attempted, seems to me inadequate. From our present stand-point, it becomes manifest that Fetichism is not primary but secondary. What has been said above almost of itself shows this. Let us, however, follow out the steps of its genesis. Respecting the Tasmanians, Dr. Milligan says:–“The names of men and women were taken from natural objects and occurrences around, as, for instance, a kangaroo, a gum tree, snow, hail, thunder, the wind,” flowers in blossom, etc. Surrounding objects, then, giving origin to names of persons, and being, in the way shown, eventually mistaken for the actual progenitors of those who descend from persons nicknamed after them, it results that these surrounding objects come to be regarded as in some manner possessed of personalities like the human. He whose family tradition is that his ancestor was “the Crab,” will conceive the crab as having a disguised inner power like his own; an alleged descent from “the Palm-tree” will entail belief in some kind of consciousness dwelling in the palm-tree. Hence, in proportion as the animals, plants, and inanimate objects or agents that originate names of persons, become numerous (which they will do in proportion as a tribe becomes large and the number of persons to be distinguished from one another increases), multitudinous things around will acquire imaginary personalities. And so it will happen that, as Mr. McLennan says of the Feejeeans, “Vegetables and stones, nay, even tools and weapons, pots and canoes, have souls that are immortal, and that, like the souls of men, pass on at last to Mbulu, the abode of departed spirits.” Setting out, then, with a belief in the still-living other self of the dead ancestor, the alleged general cause of misapprehension affords us an intelligible origin of the fetichistic conception; and we are enabled to see how it tends to become a general, if not a universal, conception.

* * * * *

Other apparently inexplicable phenomena are at the same time divested of their strangeness. I refer to the beliefs in, and worship of, compound monsters–impossible hybrid animals, and forms that are half human, half brutal. The theory of a primordial Fetichism, supposing it otherwise adequate, yields no feasible solutions of these. Grant the alleged original tendency to think of all natural agencies as in some way personal. Grant, too, that hence may arise a worship of animals, plants, and even inanimate bodies. Still the obvious implication is that the worship so derived will be limited to things that are, or have been, perceived. Why should this mode of thought lead the savage to imagine a combination of bird and mammal; and not only to imagine it, but to worship it as a god? If even we admit that some illusion may have suggested the belief in a creature half man, half fish, we cannot thus explain the prevalence among Eastern races of idols representing bird-headed men, and men having their legs replaced by the legs of a cock, and men with the heads of elephants.