Chapter FAN-PALM to FETISH of F by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

ariyatullah, a native of the village of Daulatpur, in the district of Faridpur, who was killed in an agrarian riot in 1831. His son Dudu Miyan succeeded him as head of the sect. Since his death, some 35 years ago, the influence of the body is said to have diminished, but it had spread very largely through Lower Bengal. The Faraizi wraps his dhoty (q.v.) round his loins, without crossing it between his legs, a practice which he regards as heathenish, as a Bedouin would. FEROZESHUHUR, FEROSHUHR, PHERUSHAHR, n.p. The last of these appears to be the correct representation of this name of the scene of the hard-fought battle of 21st–22nd December, 1845. For, according to Col. R. C. Temple, the Editor of Panjab Notes and Queries, ii. 116 (1885), the village was named after Bhai Pheru, a Sikh saint of the beginning of the century, who lies buried at Mian-ke-Tahsil in Lahore District.

FETISH, s. A natural object, or animal, made an object of worship. From Port. fetiço, feitiço, or fetisso (old Span. fechizo), apparently rom factitius, signifying first ‘artificial,’ and then ‘unnatural,’ ‘wrought by charms,’ &c. The word is not Anglo-Indian; but it was at an early date applied by the Portuguese to the magical figures, &c., used by natives in Africa and India, and has thence been adopted into French and English. The word has of late years acquired a special and technical meaning, chiefly through the writings of Comte. [See Jevons, Intr. to the Science of Rel. 166 seqq.] Raynouard (Lex. Roman.) has fachurier, fachilador, for ‘a sorcerer,’ which he places under fat, i.e. fatum, and cites old Catalan fadador, old Span. hadador, and then Port. feiticeiro, &c. But he has mixed up the derivatives of two different words, fatum and factitius. Prof. Max Müller quotes, from Muratori, a work of 1311 which has: “incantationes, sacrilegia, auguria, vel malefica, quae facturae seu praestigia vulgariter appellantur.” And Raynouard himself has in a French passage of 1446: “par leurs sorceries et faictureries.”

1487.—“E assi lhe (a el Rey de Beni) mandou muitos e santos conselhos pera tornar á Fé de Nosso Senhor … mandandolhe muito estranhar suas idolotrias e feitiçarias, que em suas terras os negros tinhão e usão.”—Garcia, Resende, Chron, of Dom. João II. ch. lxv.

c. 1539.—“E que jà por duas yezes o tinhão tetado cõ arroydo feytiço, só a fim de elle sayr fora, e o matarem na briga …” —Pinto, ch. xxxiv.

1552.—“They have many and various idolatries, and deal much in charms (feitiçoes) and divinations.”—Castanheda, ii. 51.

1553.—“And as all the nation of this Ethiopia is much given to sorceries (feitiços) in which stands all their trust and faith … and to satisfy himself the more surely of the truth about his son, the king ordered a feitiço which was used among them (in Congo). This feitiço being tied in a cloth was sent by a slave to one of his women, of whom he had a suspicion.”— Barros, I. iii. 10.

1600.—“If they find any Fettisos in the way as they goe (which are their idolatrous gods) they give them some of their fruit.”— In Purchas, ii. 940, see also 961.

1606.—“They all determined to slay the Archbishop … they resolved to do it by another kind of death, which they hold to be not less certain than by the sword or other violence, and that is by sorceries (feytiços), making these for the places by which he had to pass.”—Gouvea, f. 47.

1613.—“As feiticeiras usão muyto de rayzes de ervas plantas e arvores e animaes pera feitiços e transfigurações.…”— Godinho de Eredia, f. 38.

1673.—“We saw several the Holy Office had branded with the names of Fetisceroes or Charmers, or in English Wizards.”— Fryer, 155.

1690.—“They (the Africans) travel no-where without their Fateish about them.” —Ovington, 67.

1878.—“The word fetishism was never used before the year 1760. In that year appeared an anonymous book called Du Culte des Dieux Fétiches, ou Parallèle de l’Ancienne Religion de l’Egypte avec la Rel. actuelle de la Nigritie.” It is known that this book was written by … the well known President de Brosses.… Why did the Portuguese navigators … recognise at once what they saw among the Negroes of the Gold Coast as feitiços? The answer is clear. Because they themselves were perfectly familiar with a feitiço, an amulet or talisman.”—Max Müller, Hibbert Lectures, 56–57.