This pictorial pantomime brings us to the employment of formative arts in war. To some extent even painting, especially in its decorative branches, may be considered as a means of exhortation. The various decorations of the body which are usually adopted for fighting no doubt raise the courage of their wearers. A festival dress, when assumed for battle—for example, by the Khonds—must needs bring with it a light and festive mood.[448] The red colour, so often used in military dress, tends, on the other hand, to arouse increased vigour by direct physiological as well as by associative action.[449] Perhaps also, as some old authors suggest, the use of red may have had a negative importance by concealing the wounds and the blood, which else might depress the men and encourage their enemies.[450] Like every beautiful thing, highly ornamented weapons will afford their owners an invigorating feeling of pride, which, however,—to judge from the unheroic character of many tribes whose weapons are most gorgeously decorated,—does not seem to be of any great military advantage.[451] Military ensigns, such as banners, standards, and the like, will naturally, as outward symbols of the tribe, exercise an exciting influence on the warriors. Even for barbarous nations, with their undeveloped feelings of patriotism, in the modern sense of the word, a flag may represent _la patrie en marche_. Well knowing the moral value of these apparently unimportant things, the Aztecs employed in their army men whose only task was “to remove from the eyes of the enemy every object that could heighten their courage and inflame their pride.”[452] The importance of field badges is of course increased when, as generally is the case, they are adorned with some religious or magical representation. Be it a tutelar saint, a heathen god, or simply a totem animal, which is depicted, these images will always be relied upon as a strong support to the army.[453] The marvellous tales of assistance afforded by idols which have been carried in the front of battle may of course have some real foundation in the encouraging mental effects produced upon the warriors.