Here is my second repost from http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:99a_h7JKMrYJ:journal.oraltradition.org/files/articles/21ii/Ugochukwu.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk:


Excerpt of Between Heaven and Hell

pages 255,256, 257 with one footnote

..."Black and white have been considered as constituting two opposite poles, with red standing somewhere in between. These three colors seem to be the most prominent and universal in all languages, possessing an ancient and powerful symbolism (Verity 1980:113). In French oral literature, the red color associated with the devil is directly inspired by the fire and flames of hell, 11 and illustrates the fact that the appreciation and reading of colors has been heavily influenced by traditional/popular and imported religions. In France, folktales record an overwhelming influence from Catholicism and the Bible, which have given white its positive connotation—associating it not only with snow but with cleanliness, innocence, and beauty—while equating black with evil, as further evidenced by French and English expressions such as "black soul," "black magic," "black market," and "dark secrets." Nederveen Pieterse comments (1992:196): "In a . . . perspective in which 'clean,' 'white,' 'fair,' 'light,' 'good' go together as the foundation of aesthetics and civilization, it is obvious that 'dark,' 'black,' 'dirty,' 'sinful,''evil' will be grouped together as well." Interestingly, the same reading of white prevails in Africa, both in the language and in folktales, in spite of the fact that those are laden with traditional beliefs.

Whenever she appears in folktales, the Virgin Mary is white,12 and folktales and popular culture usually highlight the beauty of fair women, as proved by the stories of Snow-White and All-kinds-of-fur (Grimm and Grimm 1976: 144, 201). In Igbo folktales and culture, the fairer a girl or a woman is, the closer she is to the spirits. masks that represent young, unmarried girls always have a white face (Basden 1938:368). In addition, white is the favorite color of the mermaid cult, associated with white handkerchief dancing, mirrors, and the presentation of white objects and fowl to the River spirits, a fertility cult prevalent all along the West African coast and the River Niger. Adepts describe mermaids or Mami Wota as bothf air and European in appearance, with long, flowing hair, as described in"Uncle Ben's Choice," one of Chinua Achebe's Girls at War short stories (1986:79), or in Nigerian videos that depict folktales and popular religion. African myths collected by Veronika Görög-Karady (1976:220) equally associated white Europeans with water spirits.

[footnote: This could be explained by the fact that Europeans came from the sea, and then into Igboland by boat on the river Niger].

White, the color of water cults, has also been used as an alternative and a substitute for black as a mourning symbol, with expressions like "white as a sheet" evoking both the shroud that envelops the corpse and the whitish, bodiless ghost. In the course of the Igbo ozo title-taking ceremony,14 the incumbent's body is smeared with white chalk to signify his being ushered, through spiritual death, into the spirit world (Basden 1938:138).Oral tales from Congo record that the dead turn white, explaining their loss of pigmentation by their long sojourn in water (Görög-Karady 1976:219). In the Igbo folktale "The Son of the Rainbow," white is associated with cruel, merciless spirits. A child's quest for his departed father brings him and his mother to the river spirit who asks her to return to the riverbank with her child, a white clay pot, a white piece of cloth, and other white objects, seven in all. She obeys. Once there, she sings a lament, at the end of which the child falls into the water and drowns (Ugochukwu 1992:227-33). Customs and traditional rites associate both black and white equally with death, as in Igboland where pieces of white cloth are traditionally brought to the deceased's house by visitors,15 while mourners dress in either black or white. The colors of mourning clothes are the same in traditional Savoy— black for the family, white for the poor invited to the bedside, with blue worn as a substitute for black toward the end of the mourning period (Milliex 1978:144-46), a reminder of the previously mentioned closeness of black and blue."...