Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/455

 Colotir Syjubolism. 147

" Red " and " Yellow " seas. The modern Red Sea was, as Maspero reminds us, the " Black Sea " of the ancient Egyptians. The Phoenicians included part of the Indian Ocean in their Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf was the original " Yellow Sea." To the Greeks the Mediterranean was the " White Sea," and Homer is found referring to the " white south wind."

It is impossible here to go fully into the evidence re- garding the colours of the cardinal points. The habit of colouring these and the winds that blew from them obtained in the Old and New Worlds. It had undoubtedly a doc- trinal significance. In Gaelic the north is black and the south white. A number of " bad " Gaelic words are derived from the name for the north, which is on the left, and a number of " good " words are derived from the name for the south, which is on the right. In early Christian Gaelic literature the " goats " proceed on the Day of Judgment to the black north and the " sheep " to the white south. ^

The colours of the cardinal points have similarly a deep significance in the Chinese " Fung-shui " doctrine. De Groot shows in his great work, The Religions System of China, that colours are connected with the elements, the seasons, certain heavenly bodies and even with the internal organs. In Central America and Ancient Egypt the in- ternal organs were similarly connected with the coloured cardinal points.

The Maya (Central American) system yields the following arbitrary connections : -

Cardinal

Point. Bacah. Days. Colours. Elements.

South - Hobnil (the Belly), Kan, Yellow, Air.

East - Canzicnal (Serpent

Being), - - Muluc, Red, Fire.

1 I am indebted to Professor Douglas Hyde, Dublin, for notes in this connection.

^ Brinton, Mayan Hieroglyphics, p. 41.