[f. as prec. + -IST. Cf. Fr. fétichiste.]
1. One who worships a fetish.
1845. O. Brownson, Wks., VI. 384. As well might we charge the people of Massachusetts with being fetichists, as the professor charge us with worshipping images.
1865. Mill, Later Speculations of Auguste Come, in Westm. Rev., XXVIII. 1 July, 35. The Fetishist thinks not merely that his Fetish is alive, but that it can help him in war, can cure him of diseases, can grant him prosperity, or afflict him with all the contrary evils.
1870. Lubbock, The Origin of Civilisation, i. (1875), 4. If we find a belief in fetichism interwoven with the religion of even the highest races, it is because these races were Fetichists before they became Buddist, Mohometan, or Christian.
2. quasi-adj. = FETISHISTIC.
1859. R. F. Burton, Centr. Afr., in Jrnl. Geog. Soc., XXIX. 339. The faith of ancient Egypt, the earliest system of profane belief known to man, with its Triad denoting the various phases and powers of nature, was essentially fetissist.
1861. Goldw. Smith, Lect. Doctr. Progress, 6. I would fain be informed what part the negro and fetichist populations of Africa have really played in the progress of humanity; or how the invariable law of spontaneous development through a certain series of intellectual and social conditions which we are told governs the history of all nations, has been verified in their case.
