The Popular Science Monthly, August, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900Various
Science
The Popular Science Monthly, August, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
In all parts of the world red is symbolical of joyous emotion. Often,
either alone or in association with yellow, occasionally with green,
it is the fortunate or sacred color. In lands so far apart as France
and Madagascar scarlet garments were at one time the exclusive
privilege of the royal family. A great many different colors are
symbolical of mourning in various parts of the world; white, gray,
yellow, brown, blue, violet, black can be so used, but, so far as I
am aware, red never. Everywhere we find, again, that red pigments and
dyes, and especially red ochre, are apparently the first to be used
at the beginning of civilization, and that they usually continue to
be preferred even after other colors are introduced. There is indeed
one quarter of the globe where the allied color of yellow, which often
elsewhere is the favorite after red, may be said to come first. In a
region of which the Malay peninsula is the center and which includes a
large part of China, Burmah and the lower coast of India, yellow is the
sacred and preferred color, but this is the only large district which
presents us with any exception to the general rule, among either higher
or lower races, and since yellow falls into the same group as red, and
belongs to a neighboring part of the spectrum, even this phenomenon can
scarcely be said to clash seriously with the general uniformity.[E]
[E] A further partial exception is furnished by the tendency to
prefer green which may be found in certain countries, now
or formerly Mahommedan, such as North Africa and to a large
extent Spain, which have an arid and more or less desert
climate.
If we turn to Australia, whither the anthropologist often turns
in order to explore some of the most primitive and undisturbed
data of early human culture still available for study, we find the
preference for red very well marked. In times of rejoicing the tribes
at Port Mackay, Curr remarked, paint themselves red; in times of
mourning, white. In describing the paintings and rock carvings of the
Australians, Mathews states that red, white, black and occasionally
yellow pigments were used, precisely the four pigments which Karl von
den Steinen found in use in Central Brazil. Prof. Baldwin Spencer and
Mr. Gillen, in their valuable work on the natives of Central Australia,
have pointed out the significance and importance of red ochre. One of
the most striking and characteristic features, they say, of Central
Australians’ implements and weapons is the coating of red ochre with
which the native covers everything except his spear and spear-thrower.
The hair is greased and red-ochred, and red ochre is the most striking
feature in decoration generally. For ages past the Australian native
has been accustomed to rub this substance regularly over his most
sacred objects, and then over ordinary objects.
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