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Color
According to the linguists, the earliest colors for which man had names were 'black' and 'white'. In the beginning, then, the world was black and white, like Krishna and Balarama or the yin-yang symbol.
Next to be vocalized were red and green, with yellow, orange and purple coming a long time after. Black, white and red were available to the palette not only of the earliest near eastern artists, but to the paleolithic craftsman as well. The black came from charcoal, the red from red ochre, the white from clay. Green, however, could only be made in a more complex way, either from rare pigments or from vegetable dyestuffs. These last were very unreliable in the shade they gave, which might be green, blue, turquoise, or even grey, so that any of these colors could originally stand for 'green', and among southwest Indians the 'green giants' the hero fights become 'grey monsters'.
In what follows, we shall discuss color symbolism by area, since there are numerous variations. Everywhere, however, red, green and black are the colors of the underworld. These choices came, perhaps, from natural analogies: Red maybe by association with fire, or sunset, the west where man, like the sun, goes to die. Green, by an equally natural association, stands for spring. Black is for the underworld because it is dark, a place where the sun does not shine. And black-faced everywhere has the same underworld meaning, which we will discuss subsequently.
What, then, is the color of the upperworld? White, you might think; and there is quite a lot of evidence that at one time and in some areas that was the 'summer' color. However, a very strong influence from somewhere made ghosts, the underworld, and the color of mourning white, so there is no consistent pattern.
Europe
White
There is a strong association, in Europe, between the spring festival and the putting on of white garments. May mummers, May queens, newly initiated knights wear it; white was the liturgical color for Easter, and Whitsun means 'White Sunday'.
On the other hand, it is also worn by 'good' fairies who, good or bad, always belong to the other world; and by Roman augur-priests.
Red
Red is unambiguously underworld, being worn by dwarves, giants, pixies and water-nixies; by the Irish underworld goddess Morrigan, the child god Sabazios, Berchta as leader of the German Wild Hunt, by sorcerers and 'scarlet ladies' of spring; and by many of the underworld figures previously portrayed. These examples are only a brief overview of a pattern which holds for red, black and green in Europe everywhere.
Black
Berchta may also wear black; the Scandinavian goddess of the underworld Hel and the old witch La Befana are all or part black. In Germany the Wild Herd is black-faced, the black bull was sacred to Poseidon; giants and sorcerers may be black as well as red and so may priests.
Green
In France, Hellekin the leader of the Wild Hunt wears green; a Jack-in-the Green led the English May Day procession and ran in the Greek Karneion. Odin's cloak is blue (green, gray) and the Greeks held their festival for Demeter Chloe, 'the green', when the corn sprouted in spring.
Asia
India
India, though an Aryan nation, varies the European color system slightly: brides, for instance, wear red as Goddess 1 rather than white as Goddess 2. Otherwise the pattern is identical with black, red and green marking underworld gods.
Red
is the color for Brahma the creator and priest god, Siva the Destroyer, and Yama who shares the underworld with him. Also red, or in red, are Agni the fire god, Hanuman the monkey king, the Dravidian god of war and hunting Murukan, Sitala the smallpox goddess, and Abhijnaraja, the Tibetan physician god.
Black
is also sometimes Agni's color, also worn by Vritra the snake of Indra's initiation battle, and Kama, the god of desire, is referred to as 'the dark youth'.
Green
in Tibet is considered the color of corpses and used for anything pertaining to the Buddhist kingdom of death. Yama may also be green, and both Siva and Krishna may have all or in part blue (green) skin.
China
Ancient China has a complex and precise color system in which red, green, white and black are associated with the four directions, the four seasons, the four elements, and sometimes crops, flavors and bodily organs as well.
Red=south, summer, fire, man, the phoenix.
Blue (green)=east, spring, wood, the green tiger
Black=north, winter, water, and the snake and tortoise.
The black north is the home of the Dark Warrior who rules the dead.
There is a fifth color in the Chinese system, yellow; but it is ambiguous, either used for the center or replacing black in the north.
Red
Chu Lung the Torch Dragon, i.e. fire, has a human face and a scarlet snake body. Tan Chu, noted for 'sexual frolics' wears red and so do professional exorcists, Yao priests, and Kuan Ti, the Taoist god of war.
Green
is the color of the Chinese jester god (See PERSONNAGES, God 1), Shen Nung (Ibid.), the Taoist 'god of the soil' wears blue, Ts'an Ts'ung, magician and teacher, and the Woman Ch'ou with her crab emblem wear green—along with many others.
Black
belongs to the Dark Warrior of winter and the dead, and Chang Fei Chin, god of war and winter, is black-faced.
Japan
Insofar as Buddhist beliefs obtain, Japan has a calendar-color system which is not entirely consistent with the Chinese. This Buddhist system is not, in fact, even coherent within itself, and it has little influence on art, but here it is:
Black=winter, north, pearl
? = south, snake (in Tibet, Elephant)
Blue-green= spring, east; but in Tibet and India spring is white.
? =autumn,west, sword. (In Tibet autumn is as in China, white, but in India, red)
Japanese underworld gods, however, particularly the old Shinto gods, are in black, red and green as everywhere else, and red is the most frequent color used in decorating the old mound-tombs.
Africa, Crete and the Near East
From earliest times black, white and red are the three sacred colors of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Initially they were the only colors the Sumerians used in art, and the haft of the divine axe of Egypt was wrapped in these colors. Later, however, we find green in both places in addition to, and perhaps as an alternative to, black.
This triplicity of color—which we also find in Cretan and Egyptian tales of bulls which change color in the course of the day—suggest that together they represent the day, the year and the whole. And we find a similar concept elsewhere in Africa, where the 'snake that swallows its tail' on the walls of King Ghizo's palace in Dahomey is white with red and blue rings, and stands for eternity.
White
'White' seems to retain its initial sense in Egyptian hieroglyphs, with a meaning of 'bright', as the sun. The Swazi kings also put on white for their accessions and Min as royal god is represented by a white bull. But the 'white mask' representing underworld spirits and gods is common in Africa south of Egypt.
Red
In black Africa it seems to have the same underworld meaning as elsewhere, but African color symbolism, though it exists, has never been studied. Red is worn by the Cretan goddess with snakes and, in Egypt, it is Set's color as Set-Typhon snake of the underworld. In Babylon in the Nisan procession it was worn by the snake-scorpion god, perhaps Nabu, scribe and winter god.
Green
Osiris of the underworld is called 'the great black' or 'the great green'and his phallic father Geb, who heals and-or snatches the souls of the dead, is green too.Ptah, god of wisdom, may appear as a green hawk-headed mummy, like the falcon which leads the Pharaoh's funeral boat across to Abydos.
Black
is the color for Osiris, Anubis, Ptah, and many other underworld figures.
The Americas
The Aztecs and the Maya had a color-direction system just as complex as that of China, but the Maya was not always consistent. The Aztec was as follows:
Blue (green)=east, prosperity, rain and storm gods like Tlaloc (3)
Red=west, flowers, Quetzalcoatl (1)
Black=north, cold and arid, Tezcatlipoca (3)
White=north, cold and arid, Mixcoatl.
Yellow=south, dry and spring, Huitzilopochtli and Mictantecuhti, lord of the underworld.
This was probably, however, a late construct, for Quetzalcoatl 'arrives' in spring as the Green Feathered Serpent, and the Maya's clothing during the spring month Yaxkin, when fields were fired for sowing, was all blue (green). Cit Chac Coh, the Maya god of war, is a red puma , however.
Black was the color for Uzin, the Maya death god, who wore black and yellow spots, and Tezcatlipoca is always black. Ixtilton, the god of lust, is black-faced, like the black-faced Aztec dancers who represented ghosts.
North American Indians frequently have a color-direction system like that of Central America, but neither consistent with it nor consistent from tribe to tribe. Hopi, Zuni and Keres colors in the southwest are, however, fairly definite.
Blue=west
Red=south
White=east
North=yellow.
And, in the interpretation of sand paintings, it is important to know what color system is current.
But again, the old black-red-green (turquoise in the southwest) system holds for underworld gods. The Hopi death god Masau'u is black, though like Osiris he may be green in youth. Priests of the Navaho fire god Hastsezini and hero Nayenezgami (1) wear black. Big Horn, the Hopi one-horned kachina (1) has a green mask. Navaho wise man and iniator Hastehogan, though in the Night Chant he wears black, may be robed in -all colors' as may Muingwu, Hopi god of spring flowers.
Multicolored
The significance of 'multicolored' in relation to the Fool, or God 1, has already been discussed: motley, via a rag-and tatter intermediary, derives from the fur or leaves of Wild Man or Bear. But this association with the underworld is not confined to our Fool. Druids, Mycenaean bards and medieval Arabic beggar-clairvoyants wore robes of many colors as symbol of their priestly status; China's professional exorcists wear a Harlequin bonnet. China's emperor gave the Queen of the West a many colored sash in token of his legendary Sacred Betrothal to her, the same many-colored sash often worn by young people at European Whitsun festivals. Morrigan, Irish Goddess 3, wears a robe of many colors; so does Odin; the young Horus is 'feathered in many hues'; Navaho God 3 Hastehogan , Holy Woman (Goddess 3) and Holy Girl (Goddess 1) have multicolored clothing and for the Navaho 'all colors' stands for the center. Even Hopi spring god Muuingwu has a five-color mask.
The meaning of 'multicolored' is thus identical in many areas of the world, and its underworld significance may apply to animals as well, 'speckled' or 'spotted' animals being sacrificed to, or accompanying, gods of the underworld. In old Ireland, indeed, the underworld was referred to as 'the multi-colored land.'
Black-Faced
We think of the black-faced comic of vaudeville as representing an Afro-American, but the dark face is far older than that. This comic and his interlocutor descend from the black and white twins, and their jesting is an echo of the widespread phallic and fertility -promoting jesting by fools at festival, from European clowns to Hopi Koyemshi.
These divine and festival figures are, in fact, known over most of the world: in Europe, Africa, Japan, China and the Americas, and include:
Europe
European mummers, as far back as the Greek Phallophorus.
The dark-faced 'Moors' who at spring festivals in Spain, southern France, and some parts of America, battle as 'winter' the 'summer' Christians.
The Kallikantzari or 'rod-bearers' of modern Greek festival, one of whom is slain and brought back to life again.
Hel of Scandinavia
The German Wild Herd
La Befana of Italy
Africa
Osiris, Anubis and Ptah of Egypt
India
Siva; Krishna, Rama; Kama, god of desire; fire god Agni
The sinister goddesses Durga and Kali
Japan
The 'plague gods' of disease
China
Chinese war god Chang Fei Chin
The concubine of Yu Shih, a third stage god with bowl and dragon
One of the two door guardians
America
Ixtilton, Aztec god of healing
Tezcatlipoca, the 'winter twin'
Uzin, the Maya death god.
Masau'u, Hopi death god
Pueblo kachinas
The Navaho fire god
Tlaloc, fertility god
Natasha Wuhti, Pueblo death goddess
All these belong by function to the underworld.
Three Black (Green, Blue) Faces
China: 'Judge of Hell', late Ming pottery statue.
India: Siva as Bhairava, Kangra style, ca 1820. Note bowl, snakes, flower, dogs.
Rome: The Pompeian artist here is not, probably, trying to heighten the erotic effect of his painting by suggesting an interracial encounter. Though Mars' tan makes an effective contrast to Venus' pallor, he is really being portrayed in the tradition of a dark-skinned God 1 figure.
Also see the two dark faces at the end of SACRED LANDSCAPE.
The complete bibliography, and fuller notes on any of these specific subjects, may be obtained upon request. Write to Dr. A.L. Marsland, 12 S. Chenango St., Greene, N.Y. 13778. Email: marslandsr@aol.com
Copyright 1998
UPPERWORLD AND UNDERWORLD
UNDERWORLD
PERSONNAGES GOD 1 TWINS GODDESS 1 GOD 2 GODDESS 2 GOD 3 GODDESS 3 NUMBERS HATS ETC. ACTIONS ANIMALS LANDSCAPE COLOR