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fetish

, fetich

Anthropology something, esp an inanimate object, that is believed in certain cultures to be the embodiment or habitation of a spirit or magical powers

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

fetish

(in religious belief or magic) any object in which a spirit is seen as embodied; the worship of such an object being fetishism (see also ANIMISM).
(more generally, especially in psychology PSYCHOANALYSIS) any object of obsessive devotion or interest, especially objects or parts of the body other than those usually regarded as erogenous, e.g. articles of clothing, feet. see also COMMODITY FETISHISM.

Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000

Fetish

(religion, spiritualism, and occult)

From the Portuguese feitiço, "a thing made." The term was originally applied by the Portuguese in the latter half of the fifteenth century to talismans, charms, and figures produced in West Africa and believed to house spirits. Fetish should properly be applied only to magical items such as charms and talismans, and not to carved representations of deities.

The words fetish and fetishism are today little used in modern anthropology, although they may be found in psychiatry, with fetishism seen as a mental condition wherein a nongenital object is used to achieve sexual gratification.

Many of the West African fetishes incorporate a mirror as a token of the "white man's magic." Fetishes are thought to retain the protective powers of the spirit world. They were brought to America by slaves and today are often found in the Ozark region. There they are known as "conjures," "goofers," and other local names, and they are dispensed by root doctors, goomer doctors, and conjure folk.

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References in periodicals archive

Although the fetish industry still has a somewhat negative reputation, Sykes said her family and friends don't have a problem with what she does.

Woman rakes in P6.9M a year selling her used socks, shoes

A North African fetish |figure from Bamako, Mali A pair of African wooden fetish figures| A Bru Jeune Celine French fashion doll, circa 1875, is also up for sale with an estimate of PS1,500 - PS2,000 There is also a German Adrian Gebruder Heubach Einco googly-eyed bisque doll, dated from 1913, which could fetch PS2,000 - PS3,000.

With possible PS8k price tag this cute doll is no Barbie

By challenging the sex binary, the ambiguous figure of the hermaphrodite refuses to fit into any category, thus cleverly encapsulating Johnston's argument about early modern beard fetish and the illusion of the fetish object.

Johnston, Mark Albert, Beard Fetish in Early Modern England: Sex, Gender, and Registers of Value

The mercantile value of the fetish comes from its origins in "cross cultural situations" due to the contacts between West African and European cultures (I, 3).

Reading Pierre Bourdieu after William Pietz

He chatted with the teenager, a Mexican girl called "Eva" said to be living in Germany, on a website called the Dark Fetish Network.

Nurse planned to eat girl, 14; HOT SPOTS COURTS

The bizarre underwear fetish is popular in Japan, where some places even stock used knickers in pornographic vending machines.

SLEAZY MONEY; Hard-up students in web fetish windfall

TICKETSFetish Fetish Knights Re-Bound is set in the fictional Associates, a bar for the masculine men of Manchester; where tales and rumours of seedy goings-on are legendary.

Comic knights

They deliberately put on weight to satisfy the weird fetishes of their partners and online fans, who watch them eat and touch themselves.

Big, fat but no depth

"Fetish, Cult, Disenchantment: Sociological Studies of the Projected Self' is a collection of ponderings on the sense of self from G.

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