Dave Warner, in a reply to Sharon Cinnamon's request for information
on the colors associated with the four cardinal directions according
to the Lakota, cites the statement of Raymond J. DeMallie and Douglas
R. Parks in their _Sioux Indian Religion_
> ... black for the west, red for the north, yellow for the east,
> white for the south, green for the earth, and blue for the sky.
Royal B. Hassrick, _The Sioux: Life and Customs of a Warrior
Society_, Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1964, pp. 26 and 215, indicates
all of these colors except white, but does not associate them with the
four directions. Rather, he relates what the colors symbolize: blue,
the Sky; yellow, the Rock; red, the Sun; green, the Earth; black,
an indication of intense devotion, but it might also represent evil
forces. It would be interesting to know what white symbolizes, because
Hassrick gives enough information to suggest a pattern analogous to
that among the Apache.
Among the Chiricahua, Warm Springs, and Mescalero Apache, the colors
associated with the four cardinal directions are: the east, yellow;
the south, blue; the west, white; and the north, black. In their
dialects of Southern Athapaskan, the same word is used for blue and
green. Thus, use of this word symbolized the harmony of the Cloud-
land (i.e,, the spirit world) and the natural world in ceremonies.
Yellow is the color of the sun, which rises in the east, and bestows
life-giving power with its rays. South is the direction of the
prevailing winds, of crucial importance in the semi-desert of
southern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. The Chiricahua and
Warm Springs Apache customarily made their winter encampments in the
laguna region of northwestern Chihuahua to avoid deep snows in the
mountains to the north, northeast, and northwest; and this region
contains an abundance of mescal and cactus fruits. West is the
direction the spirits of the dead who have lived good lives travel
via the Milky Way to the Happy Land, and north in the direction the
spirit travels at death to *nigawya*, a sort of Apache *sheol*,
where the souls of _all_ dead humans go.
If you draw the four cardinal points as the points of a diamond
shape (as in card games), connect them with a vertical and
horizontal line in the shape of an equal-armed cross, then draw
lines connecting east and south and west and north, you will get
the real meaning of this symbolism. East and south both represent
life; west and north represent death. Chiricahua and Warm Springs
Apache women often wore their hair in a bun and pinned a large
buckskin hourglass figure to it. This hourglass symbolized the
life and death struggle for survival that was at the heart of their
culture. Among the Western Apaches, the colors associated with
the cardinal directions are: the east, yellow; the south, white;
the west, blue; and the north, black. Thus, the east-west axis
represents life, and the north-south axis represents death. This
is why Western Apache shamans wear an equal-armed cross within a
circle on necklaces. The circle signifies the boundaries of the
universe, as a diamond shape does for the Chiricahua, Mescalero,
and Fort Sill Apache.
The red sun and yellow rocks in Lakota color symbolism seem to
suggest the sunlight and resources of the earth that were crucial
to survival in the aboriginal society of Native Americans on the
Plains. If white is somehow associated with death (or evil), and
Hassrick indicates that black is so associated, we end up with
the reverse of the Chiricahua, Warm Springs, and Mescalero hour-
glass.
Grosvenor Pollard
via Elizabeth B. Pollard
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