Fetishism

Human attribution of special powers or value to an object

For other uses, see Fetishism (disambiguation).

A fetish is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a human-made object that has power over others. Essentially, fetishism is the attribution of inherent non-material value, or powers, to an object. Talismans and amulets are related. Fetishes are often used in spiritual or religious context.

## Historiography

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The word fetish derives from the French fétiche, which comes from the Portuguese feitiço ("spell"), which in turn derives from the Latin facticius ("artificial") and facere ("to make").[1] The term fetish has evolved from an idiom used to describe a type of object created in the interaction between European travelers and Native West Africans in the early modern period to an analytical term that played a central role in the perception and study of non-Western art in general and African art in particular. The wide range of objects referred to as fetishes led to a dilution of the term’s meaning. Often, objects were classified as fetishes indiscriminately because, from a European perspective, they did not fit into any other category.[2]

William Pietz, who, in 1994, conducted an extensive ethno-historical study[3] of the fetish, argues that the term originated in the coast of West Africa during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Pietz distinguishes between, on the one hand, actual African objects that may be called fetishes in Europe, together with the indigenous theories of them, and on the other hand, "fetish", an idea, and an idea of a kind of object, to which the term above applies.[4]

According to Pietz, the post-colonial concept of "fetish" emerged from the encounter between Europeans and Africans in a very specific historical context and in response to African material culture.

He begins his thesis with an introduction to the complex history of the word:

> My argument, then, is that the fetish could originate only in conjunction with the emergent articulation of the ideology of the commodity form that defined itself within and against the social values and religious ideologies of two radically different types of noncapitalist society, as they encountered each other in an ongoing cross-cultural situation. This process is indicated in the history of the word itself as it developed from the late medieval Portuguese feitiço, to the sixteenth-century pidgin Fetisso on the African coast, to various northern European versions of the word via the 1602 text of the Dutchman Pieter de Marees... The fetish, then, not only originated from, but remains specific to, the problem of the social value of material objects as revealed in situations formed by the encounter of radically heterogeneous social systems, and a study of the history of the idea of the fetish may be guided by identifying those themes that persist throughout the various discourses and disciplines that have appropriated the term.[5]

Stallybrass concludes that "Pietz shows that the fetish as a concept was elaborated to demonize the supposedly arbitrary attachment of West Africans to material objects. The European subject was constituted in opposition to a demonized fetishism, through the disavowal of the object."[6]

## History

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Initially, the Portuguese developed the concept of the fetish to refer to the objects used in religious practices by West African natives.[5] The contemporary Portuguese feitiço may refer to more neutral terms such as charm, enchantment, or abracadabra, or more potentially offensive terms such as juju, witchcraft, witchery, conjuration or bewitchment. The medieval Lollards issued polemics that anticipated fetishism.[7]

The concept was popularized in Europe circa 1757, when Charles de Brosses used it in comparing West African religion to the magical aspects of ancient Egyptian religion. Later, Auguste Comte employed the concept in his theory of the evolution of religion, wherein he posited fetishism as the earliest (most primitive) stage, followed by polytheism and monotheism. However, ethnography and anthropology would classify some artifacts of polytheistic and monotheistic religions as fetishes.

The eighteenth-century intellectuals who articulated the theory of fetishism encountered this notion in descriptions of "Guinea" contained in such popular voyage collections as Ramusio's Viaggio e Navigazioni (1550), de Bry's India Orientalis (1597), Purchas's Hakluytus Posthumus (1625), Churchill's Collection of Voyages and Travels (1732), Astley's A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels (1746), and Prevost's Histoire generale des voyages (1748).[8]

The theory of fetishism was articulated at the end of the eighteenth century by G. W. F. Hegel in Lectures on the Philosophy of History. According to Hegel, Africans were incapable of abstract thought, their ideas and actions were governed by impulse, and therefore a fetish object could be anything that then was arbitrarily imbued with "imaginary powers".[9]

## Practice

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A voodoo fetish market in Lomé, Togo, 2008

The use of the concept in the study of religion derives from studies of traditional West African religious beliefs, as well as from Vodun, which in turn derives from those beliefs.

Fetishes were commonly used in some Native American religions and practices.[10] For example, the bear represented the shaman, the buffalo was the provider, the mountain lion was the warrior, and the wolf was the pathfinder, the cause of the war.[10]

## Japan

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Katō Genchi [ja] (1873–1965), a Shinto priest and scholar of comparative religion, applied the term "fetish" to the historical study of traditional Japanese religion. He cited jewelry, swords, mirrors, and scarves as examples of fetishism in Shinto.[11] In rural areas of Japan, he said he could find many traces of animism, totemism, fetishism, and phallicism.[12] He also maintained that the Ten Sacred Treasures [ja] were fetishes and the Imperial Regalia of Japan retained the same traits, and pointed out the similarities with the Pusaka heirlooms of the natives of the East Indies and the sacred Tjurunga of the Central Australians.[13] He noted that the divine sword Kusanagi no Tsurugi, which was believed to provide supernatural protection ('blessings'), was deified and enshrined (at what is now the Atsuta Shrine).[13] Akaruhime no Kami, the female deity of Hiyurikuso Shrine [ja], was said to have originally been a red ball before transforming into a beautiful woman.[13] The jewel around Izanagi-no-Mikoto's neck was deified and called Mikuratana-no-kami.[13]

The Anglo-Irish diplomat and scholar William George Aston (1841–1911) also maintained that Kusanagi no Tsurugi could be seen as an example of fetishism. Originally an offering, the enshrined sword became a mitamashiro (lit. 'spirit representative', 'spirit-token'), more commonly known as the shintai (lit. 'god-body'; a sacred object containing the kami or 'spirit').[14] Aston observed that people tended to think of the mitama ('spirit') of a deity first as the seat of his or her real presence, and secondly as the deity itself. In practice, the distinction between mitama and shintai was fluid, and shintai even came to be identified as the god's body.[14] For example, the cooking furnace (kamado) itself was worshiped as a deity.[14] Given the vagueness of such distinctions – further accentuated by the restricted usage of images (e.g., in painting or sculpture) – there was a tendency to ascribe special virtues to certain physical objects in place of the deity.[14]

In modern times, the American linguist Roy Andrew Miller (1924–2014) observed that the pamphlet of the nationalistic Kokutai no Hongi proclamation (1937) and the Imperial Rescript on Education (1890) were also often worshipped as "fetishes", and were respectfully placed and kept in household altars (kamidana).[15][n 1]

## Philippines

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In the pre-colonial Philippine context, Anito fetishes were central to the animistic beliefs of the early Filipinos. These objects, often human-made, served as physical representations of spiritual entities or ancestral spirits. Their role in rituals, worship, and daily life illustrates the rich spiritual tradition of the early Austronesian peoples who inhabited the Philippine archipelago. Anito fetishes refer to objects imbued with spiritual significance, often crafted to house or represent spirits collectively known as Anito. These were usually Ancestor Spirits also called Anito The souls of deceased relatives who provided guidance, protection, or blessings to their descendants. Anito fetishes were typically carved from wood, stone, or bone, and they served as both a focus of worship and a conduit for spiritual energy. Anito fetishes were placed in shrines or sacred areas where offerings such as food, drinks, or animal sacrifices were made. These offerings were meant to appease or gain favours from the ancestor spirits and spirits of the dead and deities and celestial beings called Diwata. The term Anito is deeply rooted in Austronesian linguistic heritage, with similar terms found across related culture Proto-Malayo-Polynesian: qanitu (spirit of the dead) Proto-Austronesian: qaNiCu (ancestor spirit) Indonesian and Malaysian: Hantu or Antu (spirit or ghost) Polynesian: Atua or Aitu (ancestral ghost or spirit)[17][18][19][20] Anito—widely understood today by Filipinos in the Philippines in contemporary as referring to ancestor spirits or spirits of the dead, evil spirits and the wooden idols and fetish that represent them.[21][22][23][24]Anito In Philippine mythology, refers to ancestor spirits, spirits of the dead, evil spirits and the wooden idols that represent or house them. In contrast, within the context of folk religion[25][26][27]

## Minkisi

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Made and used by the BaKongo of western DRC, a nkisi (plural minkisi) is a sculptural object that provides a local habitation for a spiritual personality. Though some minkisi have always been anthropomorphic, they were probably much less "naturalistic" or "realistic" before the arrival of the Europeans in the nineteenth century; Kongo figures are more naturalistic in the coastal areas than inland.[4] As Christians tend to think of spirits as objects of worship, idols become the objects of idolatry when worship was addressed to false gods. In this way, European Christian colonialists regarded minkisi as idols on the basis of religious bias.

The foreign Christians often called nkisi "fetishes" and sometimes "idols" because they are sometimes rendered in human form or semi-human form. Modern anthropology has generally referred to these objects either as "power objects" or as "charms".

In addressing the question of whether a nkisi is a fetish, William McGaffey writes that the Kongo ritual system as a whole,

> bears a relationship similar to that which Marx supposed that "political economy" bore to capitalism as its "religion", but not for the reasons advanced by Bosman, the Enlightenment thinkers, and Hegel. The irrationally "animate" character of the ritual system's symbolic apparatus, including minkisi, divination devices, and witch-testing ordeals, obliquely expressed real relations of power among the participants in ritual. "Fetishism" is about relations among people, rather than the objects that mediate and disguise those relations.[4]

Therefore, McGaffey concludes, to call a nkisi a fetish is to translate "certain Kongo realities into the categories developed in the emergent social sciences of nineteenth century, post-enlightenment Europe."[4]

## See also

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* Boli
* Commodity fetishism

## Notes and references

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### Notes

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1. ^ In his discussion of the Japanese identity myth surrounding the national language (Nihongo), Miller described kotodama (the 'spirit' of the language) as "the single most important fetish term in the entire modern myth of Nihongo."[16]

### References

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1. ^ Harper, Douglas. "fetish (n.)". Online Etymology Dictionary. Archived from the original on 13 November 2013. Retrieved 2 March 2014.
2. ^ Sebastian-Manès Sprute, « Le chaos au musée. Inventaire et ordre des savoirs ». In: Collective (ed.), Atlas de l'absence. Le patrimoine culturel du Cameroun en Allemagne, Berlin 2023, (english working translation online) Berlin 2023, p. 275-306, here p. 283-284
3. ^ Pietz, William (1988). The origin of fetishism: A contribution to the history of theory (Ph.D. diss.). University of California, Santa Cruz. ProQuest 303717649.
4. ^ a b c d MacGaffey, Wyatt (Spring 1994). "African objects and the idea of fetish". RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics. 25: 123–131\. doi:10.1086/RESv25n1ms20166895. S2CID 191127564.
5. ^ a b Pietz, William (Spring 1985). "The Problem of the Fetish, I". RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics. 9 (9). The President and Fellows of Harvard College acting through the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology: 5–17\. doi:10.1086/RESv9n1ms20166719. JSTOR 20166719. S2CID 164933628.
6. ^ Stallybrass, Peter (2001). Daniel Miller (ed.). Consumption : critical concepts in the social sciences (1. publ. ed.). London: Routledge. ISBN 0415242673.
7. ^ Stanbury, S. (2015). The Visual Object of Desire in Late Medieval England. The Middle Ages Series. University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated. p. 31\. ISBN 978-1-5128-0829-2. Retrieved 2023-06-14.
8. ^ Pietz, William (Spring 1987). "The Problem of the Fetish, II: The Origin of the Fetish". RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics. 13 (13): 23–45\. doi:10.1086/RESv13n1ms20166762. JSTOR 20166762. S2CID 151350653.
9. ^ MacGaffey, Wyatt (1993). Astonishment & Power, The Eyes of Understanding: Kongo Minkisi. National Museum of African Art.
10. ^ a b "Animals: fact and folklore". New Mexico Magazine. August 2008. pp. 56–63.
11. ^ Hylkema-Vos, Naomi (1990). "Katō Genchi: A Neglected Pioneer in Comparative Religion". Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. 17 (4): 375–395\. doi:10.18874/jjrs.17.4.1990.375-395. ISSN 0304-1042. JSTOR 30233418.
12. ^ Dr. Genchi Kato's monumental work on Shinto, Daniel C. Holtom. 明治聖徳記念学会第47巻、昭和12年 1937/04/ p7-14
13. ^ a b c d A Study of Shinto: The Religion of the Japanese Nation, By Genchi Katu, Copyright Year 2011, ISBN 9780415845762, Published February 27, 2013 by Routledge, Chapter III Fetishism and Phallicism
14. ^ a b c d SHINTO (THE WAY OF THE GODS) BY W. G. ASTON, C.M.G, D.Lit., LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY, 1905, p.65-75, p.73, p.159
15. ^ KOKUTAI - POLITICAL SHINTÔ FROM EARLY-MODERN TO CONTEMPORARY JAPAN, Klaus Antoni, Eberhard Karls University Tübingen: Tobias-lib Tübingen 2016, p259
16. ^ Chew, John J. (1984). "The Japanese Language in the Eyes of Postwar Japan – A Review Article". The Journal of Asian Studies. 43 (3): 475–480\. doi:10.2307/2055759. ISSN 0021-9118. JSTOR 2055759.
17. ^ Apostol, Virgil Mayor (2012). Way of the Ancient Healer: Sacred Teachings from the Philippine Ancestral Traditions. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books. ISBN 978-1-58394-597-1.
18. ^ Baldick, Julian (2013). Ancient religions of the Austronesian world: from Australasia to Taiwan. International library of ethnicity, identity and culture. London New York: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-0-85773-357-3.
19. ^ Funk, Leberecht (2014), Musharbash, Yasmine; Presterudstuen, Geir Henning (eds.), "Entanglements between Tao People and Anito on Lanyu Island, Taiwan", Monster Anthropology in Australasia and Beyond, New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, pp. 143–159, doi:10.1057/9781137448651_9, ISBN 9781137448651, retrieved 2025-01-22
20. ^ Royle, Stephen (2018-11-30). "Tips from the blog XI: docx to pdf". doi:10.59350/fkbwr-efa03. `{{cite journal}}`: Cite journal requires `|journal=` (help)
21. ^ Morse, John M. (July 2001). "Lessons in On-Line Reference PublishingMerriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Merriam-WebsterMerriam-Webster's Collegiate Thesaurus. Merriam-WebsterMerriam-Webster's Collegiate Encyclopedia. Merriam-Webster". The Library Quarterly. 71 (3): 392–399\. doi:10.1086/603287. ISSN 0024-2519.
22. ^ Kudasov, Nikolai (2025), Free Monads, Intrinsic Scoping, and Higher-Order Preunification, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 14843, Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, pp. 22–54, doi:10.1007/978-3-031-74558-4_2, ISBN 978-3-031-74557-7, retrieved 2025-01-22
23. ^ Safiullina, Gulshat Rafailevna (2021-04-30). "Principles of Compiling the Tatar-English Online Dictionary of the Glosbe Project at Macroand Microstructure Levels". Philology. Theory & Practice. 14 (4): 1120–1124\. doi:10.30853/phil210135. ISSN 1997-2911.
24. ^ Joseph, Anito; Bryson, Noel (1997). "W-efficient partitions and the solution of the sequential clustering problem". Annals of Operations Research. 74: 305–319\. doi:10.1023/a:1018934824176. ISSN 0254-5330.
25. ^ Royle, Stephen (2018-11-30). "Tips from the blog XI: docx to pdf". doi:10.59350/fkbwr-efa03. `{{cite journal}}`: Cite journal requires `|journal=` (help)
26. ^ Anito, Bekelech Freneh; Ali, Wondwosen Tesfamichael; Ayele, Zeleke Arifich (2025-01-01). "Effects of Task-Based Language Teaching on Improving Grade 11 Students' Essay Writing Skills". Journal of Language Teaching and Research. 16 (1): 23–32\. doi:10.17507/jltr.1601.03. ISSN 2053-0684.
27. ^ Funk, Leberecht (2014), Musharbash, Yasmine; Presterudstuen, Geir Henning (eds.), "Entanglements between Tao People and Anito on Lanyu Island, Taiwan", Monster Anthropology in Australasia and Beyond, New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, pp. 143–159, doi:10.1057/9781137448651_9, ISBN 978-1-349-50129-8, retrieved 2025-01-23

## External links

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* The dictionary definition of fetish at Wiktionary
* Media related to Category:Religious fetishism at Wikimedia Commons
* The Catholic Encyclopaedia: Fetishism pp. 147–159.

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