For every human passion or desire of every part of our nature, for our thousand necessities or wishes, a fetich can be made, its operation being directed to the attainment of one specified wish, and limited in power only by the possible existence of some more powerful antagonizing spirit.
This, hung on the plantation fence or from the branches of plants in the garden, is either to prevent theft or to sicken the thief; hung over the doorway of the house, to bar the entrance of evil; hung from the bow of the canoe, to insure a successful voyage; worn on the arm in hunting, to assure an accurate aim; worn on any part of one's person, to give success in loving, hating, planting, fishing, buying, and so forth, through the whole range of daily work and interests.
Some kinds, worn on a bracelet or necklace, are to ward off sickness. The new-born infant has a health-knot tied about its neck, wrist, or loins. Down to the day of oldest age, every one keeps on multiplying or renewing or altering these life talismans.
If of the charge at Balaklava it was said, "This is magnificent, but it is not war," I may say of these heathen, "Such faith is magnificent, though it be folly." The hunter going out, certain of success, returns empty-handed; the warrior bearing on his breast a fetich panoply, which he is confident will turn aside a bullet, comes back wounded; every one is some day foiled in his cherished plan. Do they lose their faith? No, not in the system,--their fetichism; but in the special material object of their faith--their fetich--they do. Going to the oganga whom they had paid for concocting that now disappointing amulet, they tell him of its failure. He readily replies: "Yes, I know. You have an enemy who possesses a fetich containing a spirit more powerful than yours, which made your bullet miss its mark, which caused your opponent's spear to wound you. Yours is no longer of use; it's dead. Come, pay me, and I will make you a charm containing a spirit still more powerful."
The old fetich hitherto jealously guarded, and which would not have been sold for any consideration, is now thrown away or sold to the foreign curio-hunter.
A native heathen Akele chief, Kasa, my friend and host in the Ogowe, in 1874, showed me a string of shells, bones, horns, wild-cat tails, and so forth, each with its magic compound, which he said could turn aside bullets. In a friendly way he dared me to fire at him with my sixteen-repeater Winchester rifle. I did not believe he meant it; but, on his taking his stand a few paces distant, he did not quail under my steady aim, nor even at the click of the trigger. I, of course, desisted, apparently worsted. Two years later, Kasa was charged by an elephant he had wounded, and was pierced by its tusks. His attendants drove off the beast; the fearfully lacerated man survived long enough to accuse twelve of his women and other slaves of having bewitched his gun, and thus causing it only to wound instead of killing the elephant. On that charge four of the accused were put to death.