[Carib cemi.] An idol, or a tutelary spirit represented thereby, worshipped by the aborigines of the West Indian islands. Hence Zemeism (see quot. 1902); Zemeistic a.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage, IX. xiv. 743. These Images they made of Gossampine cotton hard stopped, sitting, like the pictures of the Deuill, which they called Zemes. Ibid. Euery King hath his particular Zemes, which he honoureth.
1663. J. Owen, Vind. Animadv. Fiat Lux, xxi. 487. In the Indies, the Catholick Spaniards took away the Zemes or Images of their Idols.
1902. Fewkes, in Science, 18 July, 104. The whole social and religious organization was knit together by a form of totemism or tutelary clan ancients worship which I shall call Zemeism.
1903–4. Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., 54. Zemiism. Ibid., 59. Her body was painted with figures and … flowers, evidently zemeistic or totemistic.
