SYMBOLIC COLORS.

§ 373. On the tent of Hupeȼa (Pl. XLIV, E), a black bear man, were represented four kinds of lightning—blue, red, black, and yellow. This was a mystery decoration (§ 45), and if the colors were associated with the four quarters, the powers were probably invoked in the order shown in Fig. 200. (See §§ 340, 369.)

FIG. 200.—Omaha lightnings and the four quarters.

§ 374. Blue is assumed to be the earth symbol for two reasons: (1) In the decorations of those who have had visions of bears, there is a broad blue band, representing the earth, out of which the bear is sometimes depicted as issuing; (2) and, furthermore, the Indians seldom distinguish between blue and green, hence, blue may symbolize grass and other vegetation, springing from the earth. In apparent contradiction of this use of blue, we are told by Lynd that “the Tunkan is painted red as a sign of active worship” (see § 132), and by Riggs (§ 133) that large bowlders were adorned with red and green paint, though the use of the two colors may have depended on a composite cult. In this connection attention is called to the battle standards represented on the tent of Ԁejequta, an Omaha. These painted standards had red and blue stripes, denoting the stripes of Indian cloth, sometimes used instead of feathers on the real standards. The latter were carried by the leaders of war parties, and each standard could be used on four such expeditions. When the warriors approached the hostile camp, the keeper of the standard removed the scarf of blue and red cloth from the shaft and wore it around his neck as he went to steal horses (see Pl. XLIV, A, the name Bowlder Thunder-being in § 390, also § 388).

§ 375. Red is known to be the Omaha color for the east. Among the Dakota the spear and tomahawk, the weapons of war, were said to have been given by the Wakinyan, the Thunder-being or Fire power; hence they are painted red (§ 105).

The late Dr. S. R. Riggs informs us that—

In the tiyotipi were placed the bundles of the black and red sticks of the soldiers.[295]

Toward the rear of the tent, but near enough to the fire for convenient use, is a large pipe placed by the symbols of power. These are two bundles of shaved sticks about 6 inches long. The sticks in one bundle are painted black and in the other red. The black bundle represents the real men of the camp—those who have made their mark on the warpath. The red bundle represents the boys and such men as wear no eagle feathers.[296]

They shave out small round sticks all of the same length, and paint them red, and they are given out to the men. These are to constitute the tiyotipi. * * * Of all the round shaved sticks, some of which were painted black and some painted red, four were especially marked. They are the four chiefs of the tiyotipi that were made.[297]

§ 376. Black is assumed to be the symbolic color for the Takuśkanśkan, the Wind-makers, whose servants are the four winds and the four black spirits of night. Black as a war color is put on the face[298] of the warrior. The Santee Dakota consider the raven (a black bird) and a small black stone, less than a hen’s egg in size, symbols of the four winds or quarters. Among the Teton Dakota, the Takuśkanśkan symbols, are small pebbles of two kinds, one white, and, according to the description, translucent; the other “resembles ordinary pebbles,” probably in being opaque.

§ 377. Yellow is assumed to be the color symbolizing water, the west, and the setting sun. The Dakota, Omaha, Ponka, and ┴ɔiwere tribes have been familiar for years with the color of the water in the Missouri river. In a Yankton Dakota legend[299] recorded by the author it is said that when two mystery men prepared themselves to visit a spirit of the water in order to recover an Indian boy, one of the men painted his entire body black, and the other painted himself yellow (this seems to refer to the south and west, the windmakers and the spirits of the waters).

In certain Omaha tent decorations we find that the tent of a Turtle man (Fig. 161) has a yellow ground. A similar yellow ground on the tent of Maⁿtcu-naⁿba of the Hañga gens (Fig. 174) may be connected with the tradition that the Hañga gens came originally from beneath the water. Too much stress, however, must not be placed upon the colors of such mystery decorations, as they may be found hereafter to have had another origin. It is conceivable, although we have no means of proving it, that he who had a vision, depicted on his robe and tent not only the colors pertaining to the objects seen in the vision, but also the color peculiar to the eponymic ancestor or power that was the “nikie” (§ 53). As some men were members of more than one order of shamans, their tent and robe decorations may refer to the one order rather than to the other, and sometimes there may be a reference to both orders. The yellow on the top of the tent of Frog, an Ictasanda man, was said to refer to a grizzly bear vision (fide George Miller, an Omaha—see Fig. 177.) But when we compare it with Pl. XLIV, D, showing the tent of a Hañga man, who was a Buffalo shaman as well as a Grizzly Bear shaman, we find that the top of the latter tent has a yellow band (apparently pointing to the Hañga tradition of an aquatic origin), as well as a blue band at the bottom (referring to the grizzly bear vision).

§ 378. From what has been said respecting the figures 194-199, we are led to make the following provisional coördinations:

Dakota god.Element.Quarter.Color.
TunkanEarthNorthBlue
WakinyanFireEastRed
TakuśkanśkanWind-makersSouthBlack
UnkteḣiWaterWestYellow

NOTE.—The names of the Dakota gods are given because we have more information about them, and the exact Omaha equivalent for Takuśkanśkan has not been obtained.

§ 379. Miss Fletcher gave, in 1884, a list of symbolic colors, which differs somewhat from that which the author has suggested in the preceding section. She said:

White, blue, red, and yellow possess different meaning, yet are not very clearly determined by all tribes.[300] Among the Dakotas the following interpretation prevails: White is seldom used artificially; when it occurs in nature, as the white buffalo, deer, rabbit, etc., and on the plumage of birds, it indicates consecration. The sacred feathers and down are always white,[301] the former being taken from the underpart of the eagle’s wing and are soft and downy. This meaning of white holds good with the Omahas, Poncas, etc., and seems to have a wide application among the Indians. Blue represents the winds, the west, the moon, the water, the thunder, and sometimes the lightning. * * * Red indicates the sun, the stone, the forms of animal and vegetable life, the procreative force. Yellow represents sunlight as distinguished from the fructifying power of the sun.[302]

The author has never observed this use of white as a symbolic color. In speaking of albino animals, we infer that to the Siouan mind they are consecrated because they are rare. In fact, Miss Fletcher says:

The white buffalo is rare and generally remains near the center of the herd, which makes it difficult of approach. It is therefore considered as the chief or sacred one of the herd; and it is consequently greatly prized by the Indians.[303]

While the author is convinced of the great value of Miss Fletcher’s investigations, he inquires concerning the veracity of her interpreters. He would like to see more detailed evidence before he accepts as the Dakota classification one which puts in the same category not only the winds and thunder, but also the water, the west, and the moon. He also asks why should the moon be separated from the sun (see § 138), and why should the west be the only quarter symbolized by a color? Besides, the Dakota shamans say that the Thunder-beings are of four colors, black, yellow, scarlet, and blue (see § 116).

In response to the wish of the author, Miss Fletcher has kindly furnished him with the following letter of explanation, received after the rest of the paper had been written:

Consecration as applied to the color white in the article you have quoted needs a few words of explanation.

The almost universal appropriation of white animals to religious ceremonies is unquestionable; whether this selection rests wholly upon the rarity of this color is a little doubtful. The unusual is generally wakan; this feeling, however, is not confined to a color, and although the white buffalo and the white deer are not often met with, other white animals, as the rabbit, are not uncommon, nor are white feathers. It is true these white feathers are often colored for ceremonial uses, but the added colors have their particular meanings, and these do not seem to override the primal signification that the feathers selected to bear these symbolic colors are white. The natural suggestion that a white ground would best serve to set off the added lines may have been in the distant past the simple reason why white feathers were chosen; and this choice adhered to for generations would at last become clothed with a mysterious significance. If this were ever true, this reason for choosing white feathers is not recognized to-day. I have been frequently told, the feathers must be white.

While I should now hesitate to say that white symbolizes consecration, still, after continued study, I find the idea clinging about the color, which, as I said then, is seldom artificially used.

Various symbolic colors are not infrequently placed upon one object, so that the combining of symbols,[304] or even their occasional exchange, does not seem discordant to the Indian mind; this fact among others renders it difficult to draw a hard and fast line about any one color or symbol.

Further research has shown me that green and blue and black are related and that to a degree green and blue are interchangeable. Blue is regarded as a darkened green; that is, green removed from the light, not deepened in hue. Blue, therefore, stands intermediate between green which has the light on it; and blue shaded into black, which has no light on it. In some ceremonies green typifies the earth; in others blue is the symbol. The sky is sometimes represented by green, and again blue is used, while blue darkened to black stands for the destructive elements of the air. I have found a subtle connection between the elements of earth and air that answers somewhat to the blending of the symbolic colors just spoken of. This connection is revealed in the reciprocal or complementary functions of gentes belonging to these two great divisions represented in the tribal structure, as well as in the reactionary character of the elements themselves as portrayed in the myths and typified in some ceremonies. For instance, the eagle mythically belongs to the air, and is allied to the destructive powers of the element and to wars upon the earth, yet the Eagle gens, although connected with the air division of the gentes, is in some tribes a peace gens. An enemy escaping to the tent of an Eagle man is safe and cannot be molested. In symbols eagle feathers are not only the pride and emblem of the warrior but they are essential in certain ceremonies of amity and peace-making.

A study of the position of gentes belonging to the divisions of earth and air, their tribal and ceremonial duties, together with their mythological significance, shows lines connecting the gentes of the earth with the gentes of the air which are vertical, so to speak, and might be represented as running north and south on the tribal circle, and indicating mediating offices as between contending or opposite forces.

It would occupy too much space to fully set forth my reasons for thinking blue-black to be the symbol of the thunder rather than red and yellow. Although thunder is allied to the four quarters, to the four elemental divisions and partakes of their symbolism, still a study of thunder myths, thunder-names, and the tribal offices of thunder gentes seems to me, at my present understanding of them, to indicate the blue-black as the persistent symbol.

I would not at this date make any unqualified statement giving green, blue, or black as the symbol of the west, the water, or the moon; and although in some instances these colors occur in connection with these objects of reverence, I am now inclined to class these as incidental rather than as representative of the color symbols.

One word regarding red and yellow. Red not only represents the sun and the procreative forces (yet black is sometimes used in the latter), but the color carries with it the idea of hope, the continuation of life. The dawn of the day, the east, is almost without exception in these tribes denoted by red. This red line, forceful, aggressive, yet life giving and hope-inspiring, starts from a war division of the tribal circle and fades into yellow as it passes into an opposite peace division in the west. Red and yellow bear to each other a relation somewhat resembling that of blue and black, only reversed; the red loses its intensity in yellow, the aggressive force symbolized in the red is not expressed in the yellow. If the Indian’s world were arched with his symbolic colors, we should see a brilliant band of red start from the east and fade to yellow in the west; while the green-blue line from the north would deepen to the black of the south. In the first the intense color would rush from war into the mild light of peace; the second bright hue would spring from peace to be lost in the darkness of war. Thus the two hold the tribe within the opposing yet complementary forces which constitute the mystery of the relation between life and death.

I will not go further into this interesting subject nor revert to the revolution of these symbolic colors as throwing light on tribal migrations and history.

Thanking you for this opportunity to modify some of my statements written nine years ago,

I remain, cordially yours,

ALICE C. FLETCHER.

PEABODY MUSEUM,
Cambridge, Mass., January 3, 1891.

In the Word Carrier of November, 1890, published by A. L. Riggs, at Santee Agency, Nebr., is an article on page 30, from Mary C. Collins, who is evidently one of the mission workers. She says: “I went into the sacred tent and talked with Sitting Bull. He sat * * * opposite the tent door. Hands and wrists were painted yellow and green; face painted red, green, and white.” (Did the four colors refer to the elements?) “As I started toward him he said, ‘Winona,[305] approach me on the left side and shake my left hand with your left hand.’” (Does the gens of Sitting Bull camp on the left side of the tribal circle, occasioning the use of the left in all ceremonies, as among the Tsiɔu gentes of the Osage? Or is the left the war side among the people of Sitting Bull, as among the Kansa? See §§ 33 and 368.)

§ 380. The following are the symbolic colors of the North Carolina Cherokee, the Ojibwa, the Navajo, the Apache, the Zuñi, and the Aztec:

Quarter,
etc.		Cherokee.
(a)		Ojibwa.Navajo.Apache.Zuñi.
(h)		Aztec.
(i)
(b)(c)(d)(e)(f)(g)
East. Red, 1. White. Red. White, 1. Yellow. Black. Yellow. White, 4. Yellow.
South. White, 4. Green. Green. Blue, 2. Red. White. Green or
Blue.		 Red, 3. White.
West. Black, 8. Red. White. Yellow, 3. Blue. Yellow. Black. Blue, 2. Blue.
North. Blue, 2. Black. Black. Black, 4. White. Blue. White. Yellow, 1. Red.
Upperworld.......................................... Blue........................................... All colors,
5.
Lowerworld.......................................... White and
black in
spots.		.......................................... Black, 6.
Sunlight......................................... Red.............................................................

a Mooney, in Jour. Am. Folklore, Vol. III, No. 8, Jan.-Mar., 1890, pp. 49, 50.

b Hoffman, in Am. Anthropologist, July, 1889, pp. 217, 218; from Sicosige, a second-degree Mide of White Earth, Minn.

c Hoffman, in ibid., p. 218; from Ojibwa, a fourth-degree Mide, from another locality.

d Matthews, in 5th An. Rept. Bur. Eth., p. 449.

e Mallery, from Thos. V. Keam’s catalogue of relics of the ancient buildings of the southwest table-lands—quoted in Trans. Anthrop. Soc. of Washington, Vol. III, 141, 1885.

f Gatschet, on Chiricahua Apache sun circle, in Trans. Anthrop. Soc. of Washington, Vol. III, 147, 1885.

g Capt. J. G. Bourke, in a letter to the author, Dec. 4, 1890. In Nov., 1885, he obtained from a San Carlos (Pinal) Apache green as the color for the north.

h Mrs. M. C. Stevenson, in 5th An. Rept. Bur. Eth., p. 548. According to Dr. J. Walter Fowkes the Hopi or Moki have a similar order of colors, the west having green (or blue).

i Kingsborough, Antiquities of Mexico, Vol. VII (fide Capt. J. G. Bourke).

According to Gatschet the Chiricahua Apache call the sun, when in the east, “the black sun,” and a tornado or gust of wind also is called “black.” (See § 378.)

Matthews says that in rare cases white is assigned to the north and black to the east, and that black represents the male and blue the female among the Navajo. (See § 105 of this paper.)

§ 381. The author calls special attention to the colors of the four sacred stones of the Omaha Wolf gens, red, black, yellow, and blue i. e., E., S., W., N.; (see § 369), and to those on the tent of an Omaha Black Bear man (see § 373, and PL. XLIV, E, where the colors are given in the order N., E., S., W.). He has not yet gained the colors for the upper and lower worlds, though the Omaha offer the pipe to the “venerable man sitting above” and to the “venerable man below lying on his back.” (§ 27.)

In the tradition of the Tiɔu wactaʞe gens of the Osage there is an account of the finding of four kinds of rocks, black, blue or green, red, and white. And from the left hind legs of four buffalo bulls there dropped to the ground four ears of corn and four pumpkins.[306] The corn and pumpkin from the first buffalo were red, those from the second were spotted, those from the third were ca[p]e, i.e., dark or distant-black, and those from the fourth were white.

Green, black, white, and gray are the traditional colors of the ancestral wolves, according to the Wolf people of the Winnebago, though for “green” we may substitute “blue,” as the corresponding name for the first son in that gens is Blue Sky. Among the personal names in the Thunder-being subgens of the Winnebago are the four color names, Green Thunder-being, Black Thunder-being, White Thunder-being, and Yellow Thunder-being (instead of Gray). James Alexander, a member of the Wolf gens, said that these four Thunder-being names did not refer to the four quarters. This seems probable, unless white be the Winnebago color for the east and gray or yellow that for the west.

In November, 1893, more than two years after the preceding sentence was written, a Winnebago told the author that among his people white was associated with the north, red with the west, and green with the south. Of these he was certain. He thought that blue was the color for the east, but he was not positive about it.