Standing Fetish Figure – African Coastal Region

Standing Fetish Figure

Region: African Coastal Region

The carved wooden figures of human beings and animals which are so typical of the art of equatorial Africa, especially in the interior and the west, are commonly grouped under the name of fetishes. This term, anglicized from a Portuguese word which was early applied in this sense, meant originally an amulet or charm. It has since been used to denote a wide variety of magical and religious objects, and fetishism has become a word to cover many diverse religious notions and practices of the African Negro and of other peoples who are held to be at a similar stage of development of mental or spiritual culture.