Just like Cheikh Anta Diop, Leo Frobenius, the German ethnologist and archaeologist who visited Africa in the 1900s saw fetishism as a creation of Europe, made to dehumanize Africans to justify and normalize slavery of the Black man [Dum Diversas or The Vatican’s Authorization of Slavery]. In all his travels throughout Africa, he had never seen natives worship fetishes!

“The new country of America needed slaves and Africa offered them: hundreds, thousands, full shiploads of slaves. “However, the slave trade was never a matter of peace; it required its justification ; so the Negro was made into a half-animal, a commodity. And this is how the notion of the fetish was invented (Portuguese : feticeiro) as a symbol of an African religion. European trademark. As for me, I have not seen in any part of black Africa the natives worship fetishes.

The idea of ​​the “barbarian Negro” is a European invention which, as a consequence, dominated Europe until the beginning of this century.”

Leo Frobenius, La Civilisation africaine, Le Rocher, Paris, “Civilisation et Traditions”, Jean-Paul Bertrand Editeur, p. 16-17 (1984). Translated to English by Dr. Y, Afrolegends.com.