As the will of the worshipper who selects the fetich makes it what it
is, so also, by the exercise of that will he imagines he can in a
certain measure be the equal or superior of his god. Like the Italian
peasant who beats or scolds his bambino when his prayers are not
answered or his wishes gratified, so the fetich is punished or not
allowed to know what is going on, by being covered up or hidden away.
Instances of such rough handling of their fetiches by the people are far
from unknown in the Land of Great Peace. At such childishness we may
wonder and imagine that fetich-worship is the very antipodes of
religion; and yet it requires but little study of the lower orders of
mind and conduct in Christendom to see how fetich-worship still lingers
among people called Christians, whether the fetich be the image of a
saint or the Virgin, or a verse of the Bible found at random and used
much as is a penny-toss to decide minor actions. Or, to look farther
south, what means the rabbit's foot carried in the pocket or the various
articles of faith now hanging in the limbo between religion and
folk-lore in various parts of our own country?
Phallicism.
Further illustrations of far Eastern Animism and Fetichism are seen in
forms once vastly more prevalent in Japan than now.
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