Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/535

Rh he has pointed out, among other things, the quasi-personal character attributed to the fetish. This is emphasized by the image which usually forms part of the fetish-bundle, even where it is not the chief item, the case or framework of the whole. For all that, the fetish is not regarded as a strictly personal being. Mr. Weeks, though not referring to Dr. Pechuël-Loesche, agrees with him here, saying, "I do not think the native mind goes farther back than the bundle, which contains for him representations of all those qualities that he fears and admires, and whose combined forces overawe him. And should he go beyond that bundle, it is only to the animals—the lion, the leopard, etc., whom he fears; the eagle, the hawk, and the falcon whom he admires and wonders at for their flight through space; and to those plants and herbs whose mysterious powers he dreads" (p. 256). Among the Boloki, on the other hand, the personal element of the fetish is much less developed. An image is very rarely used, and, when it is used, is not regarded as an essential part of the bundle. "The fetish power is imparted to any article that comes conveniently to hand." Even the Boloki, however, pours sugar-cane wine over the fetish "to render it amenable to its owner's wishes, and it is threatened if it does not act quickly on its owner's behalf" (p. 254). The imputation of personality and consciousness to external objects seems inherent in mankind. It survives among ourselves in numerous expressions used every day. It gives force and colour to the highest flights of eloquence, and it is of the essence of our poetry. What restrains it in its application to the fetish is the knowledge that the fetish is a conglomerate of forces taken from all sorts of sources,—forces brought together by the medicine-man, thanks to his art, and welded into one. Thus there underlies it a feeling of the great impersonal and universally diffused power that is the basis of the crude religion of the Congo natives.

Fetishism as practised by all these natives is defined by Mr. Weeks as "those means employed by the Congo natives for influencing the various spirits by which they believe themselves to be surrounded, either to act on their own behalf by giving them good luck and good health, or to act against their enemies by sending them misfortune, sickness, or death" (p. 259). Their system of belief, we are told, has its basis in the fear of spirits;