530 A STUDY OF SIOUAN CULTS. 



The author has never observed this use of \^ hite as a symbolic color. 

 In speaking of albino animals, we infer that to the Siouan mind they 

 are consecrated because they are rare. In fact, Miss Fletcher says : 



The white buffalo is rare and generally remains near the center of the herd, which 

 makes it tlifficult of approach. It is therefore considered as the chief or sacred one 

 of the herd; and it i.s consequently greatly prized by the Indians.' 



While the author is convinced of the great value of Miss Fletcher's 

 investigations, he inquires concerning the veracity other interi;)reters. 

 He would like to see more detailed evidence before he accepts as the 

 Dakota classification one Avhich puts in the same category not only the 

 winds and thunder, but also the water, the west, and the moon. He 

 also asks why should the moon be separated from the sun (see § 138), 

 and why should the west be the only quarter symbolized by a color 1 

 Besides, the Dakota shamans say that the Thuuder-beings are of four 

 colors, black, yellow, scarlet, and blue (see § 110). 



In response to the wish of the author. Miss Fletcher has kindly fur- 

 nished him with the following letter of explanation, received after the 

 rest of the paper had been written : 



Consecration as applied to the color white in the article you have quoted needs a 

 few words of explanation. 



The almost universal appropriation of white animals to religious ceremonies is 

 unquestionable; whether this selection rests wholly upon the rarity of this color is a 

 little doubtful. The unusual is generally wakan ; this feeling, however, is not con- 

 fined to a color, aud although the white buffalo and the white deer are not often met 

 with, other white animals, as the rabbit, are not uncommon, nor are white feathers. 

 It is true these white feathers are often colored for ceremonial uses, but the added 

 colors have their particular meanings, and these do not seem to override the primal 

 signification that the feathers selected to bear these symbolic colors are white. The 

 natural suggestion that a white ground would best serve to set off the added lines 

 may have been in the distant past the simple reason why white feathers were chosen ; 

 and this choice adhered to for generations would at last become clothed with a mys- 

 terious significance. If this were ever true, this reason for choosing white feathers 

 is not recognized to-day. I have been frequently told, the feathers must be white. 



While I should now hesitate to say that white symbolizes consecration, .still, after 

 continued study, I find the idea clingiugabout the color, which, as I said then , is sel- 

 dom artificially used. 



Various symbolic cidois are not infrequently placed upon one object, so that tne 

 combining of symbols,' or even their occasional exchange, do('S not seem discordant 

 to the Indian miud; this fact among others renders it difficult to draw a hard and 

 fast line about any one color or symbol. 



Furthei;4research has shown me that green and blue aud black are related aud that 

 to a degree green and blue are interchangeable. Blue is regarded as a darkened 

 green; that is, green removed from the light, not deepenedin hue. Blue, therefore, 

 stands intermediate between green which has the light on it, and blue shaded iuto 

 black, which has no light on it. In some ceremonies green typifies the earth; in 

 others blue is the symbol. The sky is sometimes re])resented by green, and again blue 

 is used, while blue darkened to black stands for the destructive elements of the air. 



*An. Kept. Peabody Museum, Vol. ni, p. 260. 



*As it waa cxietomary fur gentes of the same phratry to exchange personal names, a (Kausa) Deer 

 name, for instance, being given to a (Kansa) Bufialo man, and vice versa, thf author thinks that an 

 exchange of s^Tnbolic colors might be expected. Compare what Matthews tells about the exchange 

 of white and black among the Navajo, in ^ 380. 



