Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/456

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Colour Symbolism.

Cardinal

Point. Bacab. Days. Colours. Elements.

North - Zaczini (White

Benig), - - Ix, White, W^ater.

West - Hozan ek (the

Disembowelled

Black one). - Cauac, Black, Earth.

The Chinese system yields :

East, the Blue Dragon ; Spring ; wood ; planet Jupiter ; liver and gall.

South, the Red Bird ; Summer ; fire ; the sun ; planet Mars ; heart and large intestines.

West, the White Tiger ; Autumn ; wind ; metal ; planet Venus ; lungs and small intestine.

North, the Black Tortoise ; W^inter ; cold ; water ; planet Mercury ; kidneys and bladder. ^

In Ancient Egypt the four gods of the cardinal points protected the internal organs taken from the body of the dead during the process of mummification. Professor Budge states that " Hapi represented the (red) north and protected the small viscera of the body ; Tuamutef repre- sented the {} golden) east and protected the heart and lungs ; Amset represented the (white) south and protected the stomach and large intestines ; and Qebhsennuf repre- sented the (black) west and protected the liver and the gall bladder." '^ It has been shown by Professor Elliot Smith, however, that this association of the internal organs with the four sons of Horus does not accord with the evidence he has accumulated. It is based, as a matter of fact, " upon the results of the examination of a single mummy of the time of the XX 1st Dynasty, the so-called ' Jersey Mummy,' which w'as described by Pettigrew^ {Transactions of Society of Antiquaries) in the year 1837." The Professor has found that the embalmers of the late

^ De Groot, op. cit. book i. vol. iii. p. 983, and iv. 26. " Budge, Gods of the Egyptians, vol. i. p. 492.