These, once the old _kami_ of the primitive Japanese, or _kamui_ of the aboriginal Aino, show the mental soil and climate[16] which were to condition the growth of the seed imported from other lands, whether of Buddhism or Christianity.

It is very hard to kill a god while the old mind that grew and nourished him still remains the same.

Banish or brand a phantom or mind-shadow once worshipped as divine, and it will appear as a fairy, a demon, a mythical animal, or an _oni_; but to annihilate it requires many centuries of higher culture.
As with the superstitions and survival of Animism and Fetichism from our pagan ancestors among ourselves, many of the lingering beliefs may be harmless, but over the mass of men in Japan and in Chinese Asia they still exert a baleful influence.

They make life full of distress; they curtail human joy; they are a hindrance, to spiritual progress and to civilization.
Fetichism.
The animistic tendency in that part of Asia dominated by the Chinese world of ideas shows itself not only in a belief in messengers or embodiments of divine malevolence or benevolence, but also in the location of the spiritual influence in or upon an inanimate object or fetich.

Among men in Chinese Asia, from the clodhopper to the gentleman, the inheritance of Fetichism from the primeval ages is constantly noticeable.