56 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



I found in Torres Strait, is only partial and can not wholly account 

 for the absence of a word for that color. Even to those with normal 

 sensitiveness to blue, I think, there is no doubt that there is a closer 

 resemblance between blue and black and between green and black than 

 between red and black, and this difference in the degree of similarity 

 between the different sensations of color and that of blackness may 

 account in some measure for the difference in the definiteness of nomen- 

 clature. 



It is a characteristic of the language of primitive races to have 

 special names for every natural object, and often for very many indi- 

 vidual parts of a natural object. If the savage has one name for one 

 blue flower and another name for another, and so on, he will not require 

 a name for the abstract quality of blueness. It is possible that he 

 only begins to require names for colors when he begins to use pig- 

 ments. If this be the case, it may help to explain the earlier develop- 

 ment of names for red and yellow, for in many parts of the world pig- 

 ments of these colors are by far the most common. In Torres Strait 

 there were both red and yellow pigments, but no green pigment, and 

 the nearest approach to a blue pigment was a slate-colored shale, and 

 there appear to be many parts of the world where a blue pigment is 

 wholly absent. Probably the most widely distributed blue pigment is 

 indigo, and I have endeavored to ascertain whether those races which 

 are familiar with indigo have a word for blue, but the evidence I 

 have at present is too scanty to allow me to express an opinion on this 

 point. It is probable, however, that the distribution of pigments has 

 helped to determine the characteristic features of primitive color nomen- 

 clature, the greater frequency of red and yellow pigments being prob- 

 ably one of the factors which account for the more definite nomen- 

 clature for those colors. 



Another factor, which may have been of importance, is the ab- 

 sence in the savage of an aesthetic interest in nature. The blue of the 

 sky, the green and blue of the sea and the general green color of 

 vegetation do not appear to interest him. It is, however, possible 

 that the sky and sea do not interest the savage, or interest him less 

 than the civilized man, because their colors are less brilliant than they 

 are to us, and consequently this factor is not one on which much 

 stress can be laid. 



The widespread defect in the nomenclature for blue is rendered 

 more striking by the fact that a name for red is universally present in 

 primitive languages, while in many languages, as in that of Murray 

 Island, various shades of red are not only discriminated, but also re- 

 ceive special names. In the experiments made in Torres Strait it 

 seemed to me -that this definiteness in the nomenclature for red was 

 associated with a high degree of sensitiveness to this color, apparently 



