Wider use of the term refers to a created material object, thought to be endowed with supernatural power through the mystery of it's manufacture, whether for use as a channel of divine consciousness, protection against "evil spirits", a device able to influence other people's behaviour or attitudes, every human culture can be seen to have utilized manufactured "fetish" objects at some point, in order to mediate the "tangible and intangible" aspects of the world, or extracted items in that world ascribing to them a range of supernatural properties.
The word comes down to English speakers via the French translation fétiche, of the Portuguese term feitiço {sorcery; artificial} derived from the Latin factitius {artificial} and facere {to make; act, take action; construct; produce; bring forth}.
Later Latin has facturari {to
bewitch} and factura {witchcraft},
hence Portuguese feitiço, Italian fatatura, and
French faiture {sorcery;
witchcraft; magic}, terms coinciding with the exposure and
response of Roman Catholic missionaries, to various diverse religious
practices throughout the Portuguese Empire and Christian World.
The Latin root of these words is still
in use in the modern English language: factitious {not spontaneous or natural; artificial; contrived} , fatuous
{inane; unreal; illusory}, facade {a superficial
appearance or illusion of something} and facsimile {an
exact copy; equivalent of} are particularly relevant examples,
reflecting a negative attitude towards art, religious mysticism over
the centuries following industrialization, or used to refer to examples of inauthenticity, insincerity etc,.
Lisbon to
Nagasaki
In the early 16th century
the seafaring Portuguese Empire spanned much of the world, Christian
missionaries had begun the process of interacting with indigenous
cultures throughout known Africa, South America and Asia, cataloguing
their historical and religious systems while encouraging conversion
from ancestral Animist theology to Christianity, amongst elders,
tribal leaders and institutions within the indigenous social
structure.
Portuguese commerce was already well
established in the trade of African slaves, sugar and spices and Christianity was the State religion, in the 15th century Portuguese Monarch King Afonso V funded the
establishment of trading monopolies along the West Coast of Africa,
with orders for the further explorations throughout uncharted
territories in search of a passage to the “Indies”.
Portuguese expansion brought greater
potential for cultural transmission deeper into Africa when Diego Cao
-travelling along the uncharted Congo river around 1482- reached the
Kingdom of Kongo, there he exchanged several of his men for a group
of Kongolese Noblemen, stalwarts of the tribal community who were
taken to Portugal to be indoctrinated into the Christian religion
and experience the material grandeur of European Civilization before
returning to Africa with their new found knowledge "understanding" of the power of the European Colonizers in 1485, inevitably
convinced the tribes to accept conversion willingly assimilating Christian cultural structure and ideology into tradition tribal practice, the King himself
Nzinga Nkuwu converted to Christianity upon Diego Cao's return with
the Noblemen, within a few years the Kingdom was exchanging
ambassadors with Portugal and the Vatican, Portugal continued it's explorations East of Africa, and Catholicism made for them a foothold on the mainland.
Traders obtaining these exotic and mystical "works of art", the tribal “Nkisi” of the African Shaman in the early periods of cultural transmission, selling them as "Feitiço” {fetish objects}, ornate charms devoid of any mystical power other than the ability to provoke fascination, as such modern anthropology has generally called them either "power objects" or "charms."**
Traders obtaining these exotic and mystical "works of art", the tribal “Nkisi” of the African Shaman in the early periods of cultural transmission, selling them as "Feitiço” {fetish objects}, ornate charms devoid of any mystical power other than the ability to provoke fascination, as such modern anthropology has generally called them either "power objects" or "charms."**
It is during the productive process of the West African “Minkisi”,
and the mystery this represents to the members of the tribe, that the
mystical powers it holds, the purpose of the "spirit" within the object (it's value) is assigned, by the producer, it's effects thenceforth outside the producers control are dependent on it's observed effects of it's intended purpose, his confidence in
the objects power dependent on how much he attributes material events to it's imperceptible influence.
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', ….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."
Ukisi is a Bantu word derived from the
root kitį {spirit
or material objects in which it is manifested or inhabits}
and refers to an object ritually blessed by a “Nganga”, a member
of the tribe who works as a healer and protector, a mediator of the
tribe's relation to the incomprehensible forces of nature.
Native American
The Native American system of Fetishism shares many similarities with
that of the East Kongolese, like the Ngango the Native American
“Shaman” or “Medicine Man's” practice was mediated by
numerous significant and particular fetish objects, anything used by
the medicine man being viewed by members of the tribe with certain
wonder, as though anything in his presence obtained a mystical
volition, provoking not only fear but devotion and reverent awe
depending on how the objects were intended to be used.
This form of artistic, “spiritual” social practice co-existed
separately from the traditional religious beliefs of the Native
Americans, who generally practised a form of Animism in which all
matter is animated by the spirit of ancestors or a creator, being channeled through communal religious activities such as dancing, sacred rituals, forms of blessing, and worship of specific geographically or culturally relevant "spirits" (ie buffalo spirit), with the Shaman this is the practice of fashioning objects endowed with certain mystical power, of being an intermediary for the "intangible" forces of nature and providing tangible forms of order, betraying an implicit hierarchical social structure, based around fear and the unknown.
The difference between fetishism and general religious practice, is
adequately described by Lewis Spence in his work on Native American
Myths and Legends published by Senate: “A fetish...is the place of
imprisonment of a subservient spirit,,,if it would gain the rank of
godhead,(it) must do so by a long series of luck bringing, or at
least by the performance of a number of marvels of a protective or
fortune-making nature.”
Though there was much diversity of belief amongst the tribes, with
geography, individual tribal histories, totems and particular
practices differing greatly, the general idea of all things being
composed fundamentally of spirit”, enabled the American Shaman just
like the African Ngango, to construct fetish objects, from wood, bone
or other materials, containing imprisoned spirits kept under some
form of enchantment, the inspiration or idea behind an objects
construction would usually remain symbolic, only being bestowed to
the items heir through a form of ritualism possibly including a
secret oath, if an object “lost” it's power of influence, if a
“good luck” “charm” brought the bearer no luck at all, or if
it's secret was discovered, it would be considered to have lost it's
mystical “power”, therefore significance to the owner, who would
seek to replace it with a new one, the sheer volume of fetish objects
remaining in the archaeological record, testifies to the fact that
the practice itself, being rooted in a broader idea of the nature of
reality and human existence similar to Animism, far outlived the
various individual objects themselves, only those objects which stood
the test of experience assumed their position as important cultural
items, others would become mere ornaments or items of jewellery
holding only aesthetic interest to the owner.
We can see a clear parallel to this archaic practice of ritual in the modern church of the commodity, which provokes it's own moments of fervant exaltation.
We can see a clear parallel to this archaic practice of ritual in the modern church of the commodity, which provokes it's own moments of fervant exaltation.
Modern Practice
In
contrast to the Indigenous use of “Feitiço”, official fetish
objects such as: the crucifix; images of Jesus; St Christopher
pendants; statues of Mary; etc,. although also inanimate man made
objects (endowed with supernatural functions or transcendent
abilities through ritual or mythology), were positively encouraged,
the “Holy Book” of the Christian world becoming “Ukisi
Nkanda”{Ukisi
Book}
of the Kongolese, the term “Ukisi” {a
substance having characteristics of nkisi}
being used to translate "holy" in the Kikongo Catechism of
1624.
This cultural practice pre-existed Christianity in every continent,
even pre-Christian European, Celtic, Pagan, Greco-Roman and Norse
culture, bear the unmistakable evidence of having used various
objects in order to mediate the social relations between artisans,
master craftsmen, expert poets, warriors, scholars and the masses,
retaining a certain social hierarchy in place.
It is the ordering social relations within these systems, the law
keeping, regulating aspects of the community for which objects of
Fetishism were fashioned, ie the Etruscan “Fasces” symbol was
used by the Romans as a symbol of the Judicial and Legal authority of
the State, the Caduceus is used as a symbol of the medical
establishment, or if we observe the practice of fetishism today; the
Crucifix a symbol of religious suffering in devotion to Christ, the
Ferrari a symbol of success and vast fortune; the Volkswagon a symbol
of popular practicality; Audi a symbol of German efficiency, or
“truth”; a symbol of meaning, importance, value or reliability.
In this blind struggle each commodity, by pursuing its own passion,
unconsciously generates something beyond itself, while each
particular manifestation of the commodity eventually falls in
battle, the general commodity-form continues onward toward its
absolute realization.
________
*
MacGaffey, Wyatt (Spring). "African objects and
the idea of fetish". RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 25:
123-131.
John Thornton, "The Development of an African
Catholic Church in the Kingdom of Kongo, 1491-1750," Journal
of African History 25 (1984): 156-57
further reading on the subject,
John Ogilby, Africa (London,
1670), p. 514)
Balandier, Georges. Daily Life in the Kingdom of the Kongo: From the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century. London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1965.
Hilton, Anne. The Kingdom of Kongo. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985.
MacGaffey, Wyatt. Religion and Society in Central Africa: The BaKongo of Lower Zaire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.
Olfert Dapper, Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Africa Gewesten (Amsterdam, 1668), p. 548 (see English translation in John Ogilby, Africa (London, 1670), p. 514)
Dupré, Marie-Claude (1975). "Les système des forces nkisi chez le Kongo d'après le troisième volume de K. Laman," Africa
William Pietz
RES: Anthropology and
Aesthetics
No. 13 (Spring, 1987), pp. 23-45
Published by: The President and Fellows of Harvard College
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20166762
No. 13 (Spring, 1987), pp. 23-45
Published by: The President and Fellows of Harvard College
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20166762
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