Fetish

The Dogon are people living in the south-central part of the Republic of Mali. Its number is estimated at 500-600 thousand. The largest concentration of their villages is found along 150 km of the Bandiagara Escarpment.The word fetish comes from Portuguese (feitiço, fetisseo) and means enchanted thing. A fetish can be a natural object (stone, shell, horn, claw) or a manufactured one, such as a figurine or a bundle with medicines and other magic ingredients. Its characteristic element, determining its effectiveness, is its content, often invisible. Equally important and indispensable to achieve the intended goal is the knowledge and precise repetition of the magic formula accompanying the fetish. Although the word fetish is of foreign origin, it has entered the Dogo-so language and settled there for good. Nowadays, it is used to describe any movable or fixed object, in the ground or in a building, which has power in it or which is an intermediary in contacts with supernatural forces. It is also often used as a synonym for amulet, talisman and the popular term gri-gri throughout West Africa.According to the information obtained during field research, the small figurines called fetishes may have belonged to the Tellem people, who inhabited the Bandiagara Escarpment before the arrival of the Dogon, and with their help were able to fly high up in the air and teleport to other places. To experience that, it was enough to hold the figurine in one's hand and say a magic formula. Contemporary owners sometimes decide to sell such a fetish because they have forgotten the word spell and without it it is impossible to activate the power inherent in it.

Ewa Prądzyńska