Fetish

The word fetish comes from the Portuguese substantive feitiçio, which comes from the Latin noun facticius, meaning an artificial or manufactured object. However, the sense in Portuguese was not so much artificial as artful, and in 15th-century Portugal, the term was applied to religious objects such as relics and rosaries of saints. Consequently, Portuguese explorers of West Africa extended the term feitiçio to functionally similar indigenous “charms and idols.”

In the early 17th century, the word entered the English language from Portuguese; at the same time, the Portuguese word fetissero became in English fetisher or medicine person. In the meantime, the French had borrowed the Portuguese term, which became fétiche. It is this French form that gave rise to the current English spelling fetish and the less common spelling fetich, defined as an object regarded as having magical or spiritual powers and worshiped.

The meaning of the word fetish has extended in modern times to something regarded with great, sometimes excessive, admiration and reverence. It is this connotation that the English phrase “Make a fetish of something or someone” carries today. One would say of people who admire their cars so much that they always clean and/or wash them that they “make a fetish of their cars.” Likewise, people who love or revere their work so much and spend too much time doing it are said to “make a fetish of their work.” This entry looks at the role of fetishes in Africa, renewed respect for the religions that employ them, and a discussion of whether the term applies to gods as well as objects.