DORSEY.] 



SYMBOLIC COLORS. 



529 



tent of Ma"tcu-na"ba of the Hanga gens (Pig. 174) may be connected 

 with the tradition that the Haiiga gens came originally from beneath the 

 water. Too much stress, however, must not be placed upon the colors 

 of such mystery decorations, as they may be found hereafter to have 

 had another origin. It is conceivable, although we have no means of 

 l)roviug it, that he who had a vision, depicted on his robe and tent not 

 only the colors pertaining to the objects seen in the vision, bat also the 

 color peculiar to the eponymic ancestor or power that was the " nikie" 

 (§ 53). As some men were members of more than one order of 

 shamans, their tent and robe decorations may refer to the one order 

 rather than to the other, and sometimes there may be a reference to 

 both orders. The yellow on the top of the tent of Frog, an Ictasanda 

 man, was said to refer to a grizzly bear vision {fide George Miller, an 

 Omaha — see Fig. 177.) But when we compare it with PI. XLiv, D, show- 

 ing the tent of a Haiiga man, who was a Buffalo shaman as well as 

 a Grizzly Bear shaman, we tind that the top of the latter tent has a 

 yellow baud (apparently pointing to the Hanga tradition of an aquatic 

 origin), as well as a blue band at the bottom (referring to the grizzly 

 bear vision). 



§ 378. From what has been said respecting the figures 194-199, we 

 are led to make the following provisional coordinations : 



Note. — The names of the Dakota gods are given because we have more informa- 

 tion about them, and the exact Omaha equivalent for Takuskanskan has not been 

 obtained. 



§ 379. Miss Fletcher gave, in 1884, a list of symbolic colors, which 

 difters somewhat from that which the author has suggested in the pre- 

 ceding section. She said: 



White, blue, red, and yellow pos.se8S different meaning, yet are not very clearly 

 determined by all tribes. ' Among the Dakotas the following interpretation ])re vails : 

 White is seldom used artiticially ; when it occurs in nature, as the white buiialo, 

 deer, rabbit, etc., and on the plumage of birds, it indicates consecration. The sacred 

 feathers and down .are always white,- the former being taken from the under part of 

 the eagle's wing and are soft and down^'. This meaning of white holds good with 

 the Omahas, Poncas, etc., and seems to have a wide application among the Indians. 

 Blue represents the winds, the west, the moon, the water, the thunder, and some- 

 times the lightning. * • • Eed indicates the sun, the stone, the forms of animal 

 and vegetable life, the procreati ve force. Yellow represents sunlight as distinguished 

 from the fructifying power of the sun.' 



' The author accepts this without hesitation. 



'Tet these feathers anil down are often colored: see 5^ 112, 116, 132, 239, 242, and 263. 

 ^An. Kept. Peabody Miiseiuu, Vol. in, p. 28.5, note 10. Written in 1882. 

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