Belief in relics is an outgrowth of the ancient fetish cult. [1] Confucius made a new fetish out of order and established a respect for ancestral conduct that is still venerated by the Chinese at present day. [2] The doctrine of spirit possession is nothing more nor less than fetishism. [3] To protect them water holes, wells, trees, crops, and honey were considered fetishes. [4]
Fetishism ran through all the primitive cults from the earliest belief in sacred stones, through idolatry, cannibalism, and nature worship, to totemism. [5] Fetishes made early market places secure against theft. [6] Fetishes were many times mere symbols of the real object of worship. [7] The technique of religious ritual passed from the forms of the primitive cult through fetishes to magic and miracles. [8]
A fetish bag, a medicine bag, was a pouch containing a reputable assortment of ghost-impregnated articles, and the medicine man of old never allowed his bag, the symbol of his power, to touch the ground. [9] When plants and fruits became fetishes, they were taboo as food. Apple was a fetish fruit. [10]
When animals became fetishes, there ensued the taboos on eating the flesh of the fetish animal. Fetish animals were dogs, apes, monkeys, snakes, birds, pigs and cows. [11]
The first fetishes were peculiarly marked pebbles, and “sacred stones” have ever since been sought by man. Certain days of the week were fetishes. Also the lucky numbers. [12]
Saliva was a potent fetish. Parts of the human body were looked upon as potential fetishes, particularly the hair and nails. Hunchbacked and crippled children were regarded as fetishes; lunatics were believed to be moon-struck. [13]
There was only one factor of a tribal, racial, or national nature about the primitive and unorganized beliefs of the desert, and that was the peculiar and general respect which almost all Arabian tribes were willing to pay to a certain black stone fetish in a certain temple at Mecca. [14] Kings became fetish personalities and were inordinately feared, a special form of speech being adopted for court usage. [15]
See also: UB 88:1-2.