Fetishes are dolls, carved images, stones, or animal teeth, claws, or bones.
They are often worn on the body to impart their magical powers, such as for protection, luck, love, curing, warding off evil, money, good hunting, gambling, or curses on enemies. The term 'fetish' may derive from the Latin factitius, 'made by art', or the Portuguese feiti o, 'charm' or 'sorcery'. Early European traders commonly called the grou-grou they encountered juju, meaning dolls or playthings. The gris-gris evolved out of the African American slave culture in the American South, and refers to charm bags filled with magical powders, herbs, spices, roots, bones, stones, feathers, and so on. Today the term is popularly used to refer to an object or idea that receives superstitious or unquestioning trust or reverence.