Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/57

Rh In Murray Island, in the eastern part of Torres Strait, where we stayed for four months, I was able to investigate the language used for color very completely. In this island there was a very definite name for red, 'mamamamam,' while several other names, such as 'kiamikiam,' 'erǒko, mamamamam' and 'somer-mamamamam,' were used for purples and pinks. There were two definite names used for both orange and yellow, 'bambam' and 'siusiu,' and one definite word for green, 'soskěpusoskěp,' while several other words were occasionally used. There was, however, no native name for blue, apart from that used for black, 'golegole.' This word was used by many of the older men, and, as in Kiwai, the brilliant blue of the sky and the deep blue of the sea would often be called by the same name as the darkest black. Many of the natives had, however, adopted the English word, which, by re-duplication and separation of contiguous consonants, had become 'bŭlu-bŭlu,' and many of the younger men believed that this word belonged to their own language.

The color language of the western tribe of Papuans in Torres Strait was fully investigated in the Island of Mabuiag. Here the vocabulary was more definite. There were a limited number of terms which were used by nearly all for the chief colors. Red and yellow were called 'kulkadgamulnga' and 'murdgamulnga' respectively. There was a fairly definite term for green, 'ildagamulnga,' which was, however, sometimes used for blue, and there was a term for blue, 'maludgamulnga,' which was also used not infrequently for green. In addition to these four more or less definite color names, other terms were used for different shades, and a few natives showed extraordinary ingenuity in devising special names, apparently on the spur of the moment, for different shades of color. I have a list of over thirty such names from one individual, all derived from a comparison with natural objects.

In these four languages of Seven Rivers, Kiwai, Murray Island and Mabuiag, we have progressive stages in the evolution of color language; in the lowest there appears only to be a definite term for red apart from white and black; in the next stage there are definite terms for red and yellow, and an indefinite term for green; in the next stage there are definite terms for red, yellow and green, and a term for blue has been borrowed from another language; while in the highest stage there are terms for both green and blue, but these tend to be confused with one another. It is interesting to note that the order in which these four tribes are thus placed, on the ground of the development of their color language, corresponds with the order in which they would be placed on the ground of their general intellectual and cultural development.

It is said that there are other races, such as the Todas of Southern