…wood carvings: masks, ancestor figures, fetishes, bowls, boxes, cups, staffs, pots and lids, pipes, combs, tools, weapons, and musical instruments. Similar objects are also carved in ivory, and in some cases copper, brass, and iron are used. In rare instances, stone figures have been found.

…are also known for wooden fetishes and figures. Small carved ivory or wood figures were worn by Ngbandi warriors, who carried shields made of decorated woven fiber. It is often impossible to distinguish the few Ngbandi masks from those of the Ngbaka.

Statuettes called “fetishes,” for example, are thought to give substance to invisible spiritual intermediaries. The Lobi of Burkina Faso carve such figures, which they call bateba. Once activated, the bateba can be invoked for aid but will die if neglected. Other intermediaries range from simple officiants at…

…Scandinavia have sometimes been called fetishists because they propitiated nature spirits as well as personally named gods and demons. The nature spirits were generally benevolent and always localized. They could be addressed in particular objects, such as stones or posts, which the Sami would set up in likely places. The…

Fetishism, the veneration of objects believed to have magical or supernatural potency, springs from the association of spirits with particular places or things and leads to idolatry, in which the image is viewed as the symbol of a spiritual being or deity. Totemism, the belief…

…south, animist religions, which include fetishes (objects regarded with awe as the embodiment of a powerful spirit) for which Benin is renowned, retain their traditional strength.

…charm, figures of West African fetishism; and the magical objects of hunter and agrarian cultures. This type of anthropomorphism reaches its high point in the ritual and mythical pictures of the great polytheistic religions and is especially characteristic of ancient Greek religion and also of Jainism in its pictures of…