MALLERY. | SYMBOLISM OF COLORS. 62% 
Yellow or gold was the emblem of the sun, the goodness of God, marriage and 
fruitfulness. St. Joseph and St. Peter wear yellow. Yellow has also a bad signilfi- 
cation when it has a dirty, dingy hue, such as the usual dress of Judas, and then 
signifies jealousy, inconstancy, and deceit. 
Violet or amethyst signified passion and suffering or love and truth. Venitents, 
as the Magdalene, wear it. The Madonna wears it after the crucifixion, and Christ 
after the resurrection. 
Gray is the color of penance, mourning, humility, or accused innocence. 
Black with white signified humility, mourning, and purity of life. Alone, it spoke 
of darkness, wickedness, and death, and belonged to Satan. In pictures of the 
Temptation Jesus sometimes wears black. 
The associations with the several colors above mentioned differ widely 
from those in modern folk-lore; for instance, those with green and. yel- 
low, the same colors being stigmatized in the old song that ‘“ green’s 
forsaken and yellow’s forsworn.” 
The Hist. de Dieu, by Didron (d), contains the following: 
The hierarchy of colors could well, in the ideas of the Middle Ages, have been allied 
at the same time to symbolism. The most brilliant color is gold, and here it is given 
to the greatest saints. Silver, color of the moon, which is inferior to the sun, but 
its companion, however, should follow; then red, or the color of fire, attribute of 
those who struggle against passion, and which is inferior to the two metals, gold 
and silver, to the sun and moon, of which it is but an emanation; next green, which 
symbolizes hope, and which is appropriate to married people; lastly, the uncertain 
yellowish color, half white and half yellow, a modified color, which is given to saints 
who were formerly sinners, but who have succeeded in reforming themselves and 
are made somewhat bright in the sight of God by penitence. 
A note in the Am. Journal of Psychology, Vol. 1, November, 1887, p. 
190, gives another list substantially as follows: 
Yellow, the color of gold and fire, symbolizes reason. 
Green, the color of vegetable life, symbolizes utility and labor. 
Red, the color of blood, symbolizes war and love. 
Blue, the color of the sky, symbolizes spiritual life, duty, religion. 
COLOR IN CEREMONIES. 
The colors attributed to the cardinal points have been the subject of 
much discussion. Some of these special color schemes of the North 
American Indians are now mentioned. 
Mr. James Stevenson, in an address before the Anthropological So- 
ciety of Washington, D. C.; Dr. Washington Matthews, U. S. Army, 
in the Fifth Ann. Rep. of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 449; and Mr. 
Thomas V. Keam, in a MS. contribution, severally report the tribes 
mentioned below as using in their ceremonial dances the respective 
colors designated to represent the four cardinal points, viz: 
N. Ss. E. W. 
Stevenson—Zuni.-..-...--.. Yellow. Red. White. Black. 
Matthews—Navajo ......... Black. Blue. White. Yellow. 
Keam=—Mokile....----o-2-.- White. Red. Yellow. Blue. 
Mr. Stevenson, in his paper on the Ceremonial of Hasjelti Dailjis, in 
the Highth Ann. Rep. of the Bureau of Ethnology, agrees with Dr. 
