To the collector these representations suggest fairly developed art, though to the Indian they were mainly, if not wholly, symbolic; for everything indicates that the primitive artisan had not yet broken the shackles of Fetichistic symbolism, and had little conception of artistic portrayal for its own sake.
"The Siouan Indians"
W. J. McGee
Under the Fetichistic mode of thought, surrounding objects and agents are regarded as having powers more or less definitely personal in their natures; and the current interpretation is, that human intelligence, in its early stages, is obliged to conceive of their powers under this form.
"Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I"
Herbert Spencer
Setting out, then, with a belief in the still-living other self of the dead ancestor, the alleged general cause of misapprehension affords us an intelligible origin of the Fetichistic conception; and we are enabled to see how it tends to become a general, if not a universal, conception.
"Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I"
Herbert Spencer