wise application of mathematical, financial or medical science. Examine
also the paper packages carefully tied and affixed above the transom,
decipher the writing in ink or the brand left by the hot iron on the
little slabs of pine-wood--there may be one or a score of them--and what
will you read? Names of the temples with date of issue and seal of
certificate from the priests, mottoes or titles from sacred books, often
only a Sanskrit letter or monogram, of which the priest-pedler may long
since have forgotten the meaning. To build a house, select a cemetery or
proceed to any of the ordinary events of life without making use of some
sort of material fetich, is unusual, extraordinary and is voted
heterodox.

Long after the brutish stage of thought is past the fetichistic instinct
remains in the sacredness attached to the mere letter or paper or
parchment of the sacred book or writing, when used as amulet, plaster or
medicine. The survivals, even in Buddhism, of ancient and prehistoric
Fetichism are many and often with undenied approval of the religious
authorities, especially in those sects which are themselves reversions
to primitive and lower types of religion.

Among the Ainos of Yezo and Saghalin the medicine-man or shaman is
decorated with fetichistic bric-à-brac of all sorts, and these bits of
shells, metals, and other clinking substances are believed to be media
of communication with mysterious influences and forces. In Korea
thousands of trees bedecked with fluttering rags, clinking scraps of
tin, metal or stone signify the same thing. In Japan these primitive
tinkling scraps and clinking bunches of glass have long since become the
_suzu_ or wind-bells seen on the pagoda which tintinabulate with every
passing breeze. The whittled sticks of the Aino, non-conductors of evil
and protectors of those who make and rear them, stuck up in every place