Fetish
A word from Portuguese traders for West African objects, later turned into a colonial label for African religion as a whole.
Also: fetisso, feitiço, fetishism
Fetish derives from the Portuguese feitiço, meaning a made thing or charm, used from the fifteenth century by traders on the West African coast to describe objects they saw being treated with respect. The scholar William Pietz showed that the word grew out of those trade encounters, not from African terms. In 1760 Charles de Brosses used fetishism to name what he called the lowest stage of religion. Missionaries and colonial officials then applied it widely, branding African and other religions as the worship of objects. Historians and African scholars reject that framing, noting that such objects often stand for powers, ancestors or promises. The word now also has an unrelated psychological and sexual sense.