Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/39

Rh demons. In Egypt Hapi, the Nile god, is sometimes red and sometimes blue.

In Mexico, Acosta describes the idol of Vitziliputzli : " It was an image of wood like to a man, set upon a stoole of the colour of Azure, in a brancard or litter, at every corner was a piece of wood in form of a serpent's head. The stoole signified that he was set in heaven ; the idoll had all the forehead azure, and had a band of azure under the nose from one ear to another." The aspect of other Mexican gods was similar, as that of Chalchihuitlicue and Cipattonal. Blue seems to have been a sacred colour, as in Yucatan the assistants of sorcerers painted themselves blue, which was the colour of the books used by the priests and at special feasts of the gods, the instruments used in every profession, the doors of houses, and even children were daubed with blue.

In India black gods abound. Besides those to whom statues of black stone are dedicated, of which more later on, we have Siva and Râhu, Vishnu, Tara, and Kall-devi. Siva, again, is known as Nila-kantha, or "blue-necked," to explain which a myth was invented that his colour was derived from the drinking of the deadly poison, which otherwise would have destroyed the world. Saraswati, a river goddess, is blue ; and in his form as Narayana Vishnu has a blue stone image in Nepâl. The colour of Nârâyana obviously attracted attention in early times, for we have in the Mahabharata a story that it was only in the Iron Age that he became black.

Among other black gods may be named the Japanese Dai