ABSTRACT
THE fetishist belief, the idea that inanimate objects are endowed with life, necessarily entails an instinctive
and unconquerable refusal to see in death the annihilation of vital activity. To the group of people among whom he lived, the dead man appears as a good and beloved spirit, whose happiness it is their duty to ensure, and from whom they have the right to expect benefits. But if he had the misfortune to die prematurely, to come to a violent end and to leave none behind him to pay the supreme honours, he is changed into a malevolent demon, a formidable ghost, who must be reduced to impotence. These conceptions, though originally opposed and apparently contradictory, are very largely reconciled in the beliefs and practices of all communities. Among the lEgeans they co-exist more or less definitely from the earliest times.
