Faroah is the deep red pulp around the seed of a shrub (Bixa orellana), which grows wild on the banks of some of the rivers, and is cultivated by the Indians in their clearings. Mixed with a large quantity of oil, it is then either dried and so kept in lumps which can be made soft again by the addition of more oil, or is stored in a liquid condition in tubes made of hollow bamboo-stems. When it is to be used, either a mass of it is taken in the palm of the hand and rubbed over the skin or other surface to be painted, or a pattern of fine lines is drawn with it by means of a stick used as a pencil. The True Caribs also use faroah largely to stain their hammocks.
Caraweera is a somewhat similar dye, of a more purplish red, and by no means so commonly used. It is prepared from the leaves of a yellow flowered bignonia (B. chicka), together with some other unimportant ingredients. The dried leaves are boiled for a few minutes over a fire, and then some fresh-cut pieces of the bark of a certain tree and a bundle of twigs and fresh leaves of another tree are added to the mixture. The whole is then boiled for about twenty minutes, care being taken to keep the bark and leaves under water. The pot is then taken from the fire, and the contents, being poured into bowls, are allowed to subside. The clear water left at the top is poured away, and the sediment, of a beautiful purple colour, is put into a cloth, on which it is allowed to dry; after this it is scraped off and packed in tiny baskets woven of the leaves of the cokerite palm. The pigment is used for body-painting, with oil, just as is faroah.
Lana is the juice of the fruit of a small tree (Genipa americana), with which, without further preparation, blue-black lines are drawn in patterns, or large surfaces are stained on the skin. The dye thus applied is for about a week indelible.
One or more of the three body paints already mentioned is used by most Indians and in large quantities. But the white, and still more the yellow, pigments are used only rarely, in lines or dots, and very sparingly, by some of the Savannah Indians. The white substance is simply a very semi-liquid felspathic clay, which occurs in pockets in one or two places on the savannah; this is collected and dried in lumps, which are then pierced, threaded, and so put aside for future use. The nature of the yellow dye I was never able to trace; all that the Indians could or would say was that they received it in small quantities from a tribe living beyond the Wapianas, who extracted it from a tree which only grows in that neighborhood.
Paul Marcoy, in Travels in South America: N. Y., 1875, Vol. II, p. 353, says the Passés, Yuris, Barrés, and Chumanas, of Brazil, employ a decoction of indigo or genipa in tattooing.
SIGNIFICANCE OF COLORS.
Significance has been attached to the several colors among all peoples and in all periods of culture. That it is still recognized in the highest civilizations is shown by the associations of death and mourning connected with black, of innocence and peace with white, danger with red, and epidemic disease, officially, with yellow. Without dwelling upon the modern popular fancies on this subject, some illustrations from antiquity may be useful for comparison.
The Babylonians represented the sun and its sphere of motion by gold, the moon by silver, Saturn by black, Jupiter by orange, Mars by red, Venus by pale yellow, and Mercury by deep blue. Red was anciently and generally connected with divinity and power both priestly and royal. The tabernacle of the Israelites was covered with skins dyed red and the gods and images of Egypt and Chaldea were noticeably of that color, which to this day is the one distinguishing the Roman Pontiff and the cardinals.
In ancient art each color had a mystic sense or symbolism, and its proper use was an important consideration and carefully studied. With regard to early Christian art, the following extract is given from Mrs. Clement’s Handbook of Legendary and Mythologic Art, Boston, 1883. The associations with the several colors therein mentioned differ widely from those in modern folk-lore—for instance, those with green and yellow, from the same colors stigmatized in the song produced by Mr. Black in his Three Feathers, exhibiting the belief in Cornwall that “green’s forsaken and yellow’s forsworn.”
White is worn by the Saviour after his resurrection, by the Virgin in representations of the Assumption; by women as the emblem of chastity; by rich men to indicate humility, and by the judge as the symbol of integrity. It is represented sometimes by silver or the diamond, and its sentiment is purity, virginity, innocence, faith, joy, and light.