Fetishism is …
Fetishism (port feiticao - magic) - worship of inanimate objects, which are attributed to magical properties.
This simple story, in fact, is the story of the initial stage in the formation of the beliefs of mankind, which from the cradle, unable to provide itself with good luck - the main component of a comfortable state, sought help in the world around it.
This is how the first fetishes appear
Two toddlers play a simple children's game. Throw a dice and, depending on what value falls out, move the colored pieces. The youngest is unlucky. After the third consecutive victory of the elder, he burst into tears. Approaching the child's sorrowful sobs, the mother begins to console him: “It's just a game! Now Seryozha won, and next time you will win. " However, Alyosha is inconsolable: "No, mom, I cannot win, I have no luck, I always have no luck, I have no luck!" Sobs are replaced by sobs: "I have no luck in the kindergarten all the time, I lost my mitten while walking, and Alina lost it, she found it, but I didn't eat ours."
The next day, in a children's conflict, my mother was called in as an arbitrator. The lesser is the plaintiff. He demanded to exchange chips: “He always plays green, so he wins. She is happy and others are unhappy. Let him exchange with me, then it will be honorable! Without going into the background of children's philosophy, the mother decides the dispute in favor of the younger son.
After some time, she again had to intervene. This time as a referee. The younger one started to win, and the older one tries to take away his "lucky" chip. The question is decided again in favor of the younger. This time, according to the principle: "The elder must yield." Seryozha obeys, but refused to play further out of harm. The green, "lucky" token migrates to Alyosha's pocket, where he now intends to keep it from his brother's encroachments.
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This story was continued after a few days. Choking with excitement and flaming cheeks, returning from the kindergarten, Alyosha says: "I found my mitten - her children buried it in the snow!" And in the evening on my mother's ear: “I asked a lucky chip to help me - and she helped. She's magical. Just don't tell anyone - it's a secret!"
Since that time, the fate of the green piece of plastic has become the envy of all the chips in Moscow and the Moscow region. Alyosha begged his mother for a beautiful box of earrings, put a piece of colored piece of paper in it and called it all "a house for Lucky." He greeted the chip in a whisper in the morning and said goodbye to the night, he took it in his palm, squeezed it tightly and with closed eyes asked for something.
The parents began to worry. Highly educated dad and mom, not without taking into account all the rules of raising children, after doing some work with Alyosha, took away "Lucky" from him.
A few months later, a piece of malachite was found out of nowhere under his pillow.
This is how the first fetishes appeared. Their world included all the same components as the world created by five-year-old Alyosha around his "magic" feature: the need for help; finding a friend-helper; belief in luck; interpretation of positive events through the prism of this faith; reverent attitude towards who (or what) helps; intimacy of the relationship; the mystery created around these relationships; coming to a steady state of discomfort with the loss of supporting strength and turning to a new one.
There is in this story (as in the history of nations) and the will of the mighty of this world that violates the inner comfort, and, as a result, an even greater mystery around the fetish.
The peoples - "the childhood of mankind", which are now commonly called "wild", built their relations with the outside world exactly according to the same principle. It has not changed even after thousands of years, acquiring only new colors and sounds.
So what is fetishism?
What are fetishes from the point of view of now enlightened humanity?
In science, as a generalizing term, this concept was first introduced in 1760 by de Brosse in the book "Du culte des dilax fetiches ou Parallete de lancienne Religion de Egypte aves la religion de Nigritie".
By fetishism, he understood “everything that people choose as an object of worship, for example: a tree, a mountain, the sea, a stone, a lion's tail, a shell, a plant, a fish, a flower, some animals such as cows, goats, elephants, sheep, etc.. . In this definition, the worship of inanimate objects is presented as worship of themselves, and not their inherent rational principles.
Over time, the first formulation of de Bross was expanded by other scientists to understand the animistic view of objects of the material world (animism is the idea of the existence of a spirit, a soul in every person, animal, plant, and in primitive religions - in every thing).
The genesis of fetishism is not simple enough. At the first stage, the fetish was perceived as an independent force that was hidden in it, and not an external force that had infiltrated it. After that, he became the receptacle of the spirit-deity that came into him from outside.
In every pebble, in every piece of wood, primitive people saw living things. A sufficient reason for seeking advice from a piece of oak bark was, for example, that the oak is many years old, and he saw and knows more than the questioner.
The reason for the fetishization of certain objects could well have been an unusual shape or color or not corresponding to the usual location. Well, if the presence of an object was accompanied by some extraordinary circumstance - luck or, on the contrary, failure, then it unconditionally became a fetish.
Recognizing the originality of the object, its ability to be useful, the person made every effort to evoke his kind disposition towards himself.
So, the problem of attracting luck with the help of a fetish in ancient times was solved as follows: you must skillfully choose it, surround it with care, not annoy - and there is no such miracle that it could not perform.
But our ancestors were not limited to one single fetish. We practiced “separation of duties”. The nature of such a phenomenon has no clear interpretation. Either a man “shore” his “friend” from overloads; whether he was possessed by the desire to "expand the circle of friends"; whether human nature did not allow him to pass by the subject that aroused his interest; or other reasons prompted him to collect around him an ever-increasing number of fetishized items.
Researcher Roemer, studying African fetishism, described a house in which more than 20,000 different objects were collected. Along with parrot feathers, human hair, stones of various shapes and colors, pieces of wood, nuggets of metals and many others, quite exotic things were present in the description, such as, for example, wooden stakes wrapped in wool, scraps of clothing tied with intricate knots, and even a pot filled with red clay with a rooster's feather stuck into it - everything that ever struck the imagination of the owner of this house and his relatives. In the midst of all this abundance, there was a small chair, a small mattress, and a bottle of liquor for fetishes to rest and sip on the laughing liquid.
Its owner came to this peculiar house-museum to sit with his “friends” and beg various favors from them. And although the “patrons” were hierarchically different in their miraculous power, they had in common a favorable, in the opinion of the owner, attitude towards him.
Fetishes are … the same idols
With the passage of time, the fetish cult took on a higher form. The power of the object was ascribed not to itself, but to the spirits of the deities who possessed it or gave it this power. These are, first of all: the gods of the sky, rain, mountains, rivers, etc. Therefore, fetishized objects were obtained in the “places of residence” of these deities or were “invoked” into the objects offered for their “dwelling”.
Idolatry is very close to fetishism: an idol differs from a fetish only in that it is a material object to which one or another animal or human form is given. Once there is a material image on the face, it, according to the animist, either necessarily has its own, independent soul, or it can become the abode of one or another spirit (depending on the shape of the idol), for one reason or another, who decided to settle in it.
The psychology of idolatry is the same as that of fetishism: the belief that there is a powerful soul in the idol or that the spirit of a deity has infiltrated it, which, as a reward for good care or for a beautiful form given to it, helps a person.
Fetishism, beginning with de Brosse, has long been considered the lowest and most primitive form of religion; but this view was only the result of a misconception about fetish as a dead object, the worship of which could take place only at the lowest stage of mental development.
In reality, fetishism appears only during the period of full development of the animistic worldview, much later than the emergence of generic and common deities, and some of its forms, such as worship of tools, tools of labor, etc., are the direct result of the extreme development of polytheism, with its special deities for for each lesson, for each separate kind of subjects.
Fetishes are not always bearers of the spirit of deities, at times the souls of dead people and animals "take over" in them. Usually, for this, souls choose their own remains or their fragments. This can be seen in the worship of mummies among the Egyptians; in the custom of primitive peoples all the time to have the bones of their ancestors with them; in sacrifices to these remains; in the custom to keep the skull of the enemy, to possess his soul; in rituals associated with holy relics.
Further, as a result of the belief that the souls of ancestors can inhabit trees, stones, grains of sand, grains, leaves, etc., a cult of such objects is formed, again associated with higher ideas about souls, and not with the very matter of objects. Gamars on the days of sacrifices plant sticks at the table that have been cut from trees or bushes dedicated to the dead, and treat them with food; Australians worship their ancestors in the form of sticks and stones, etc.
There are, furthermore, fetishes that do not possess either an independent or an infused spirit, but receive strength only due to their proximity or relationship to a particular deity or sacred object and the taboo acquired in this way. A thing that is taken from a temple, a shaman's tomb, the abode of some deity, etc. places, due to its taboo, can become a powerful tool against the enemy or a guardian deity.
After all, there are fetishes, the origin of which is associated with that peculiar logic of primitive man, which created sympathetic magic. Suffice it to point to such examples as the talismans of the Chaldeans with the names of the gods, the custom of the Egyptians to put in the grave pictures that depict the deceased at his favorite amusement, treatment with infusion from a piece of paper covered with spells, etc. This kind of fetishism is basically again it also has an animistic lining …
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