Here is my third 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


History as Source and Key to Color-Coding

[page 257]

..."According to Bonte and Izard (2002:779), perceptual categorizers are universal and only serve as a reference; culture-coded symbolism then usesthem as primary material to build on. In the end, what matters is not the color itself but the way it is read. Goethe's opinion was that "we associatethe character of the color with the character of the person"; he personally considered the "white man" to be "the most beautiful"(1840:328 n. 839, 265n. 672). In Europe, as in Africa, history has been the major factor of transformation in the reading of colors.

In that regard, the impact of religious beliefs upon the reading ofcolors cannot be separated from historical influences, as world events likethe crusades and colonization went hand in hand with the spread ofmissionaries. Although Catholicism brought about a radical change in European reading of color (Verity 1980:113).

In itself, none of that process had anything to do with skin color, but in thecourse of time, and as early as the fifth century C.E., it did acquire that connotation: "black became the color of the devil and demons" (Nederveen Pieterse 1992: 24). This attitude was later reinforced by Europeanconfrontation with Middle Eastern Islam and the transfer of black demonsymbolism to the Chanson de Roland, where Moslems appear "black as melted pitch." Threatened by heresies, confronted by Islam, the thirteenth-century Christian world gathered itself against strangers considered as monsters, those branded as "satanic" (Delacampagne 2000:80) and promisedto destruction. In the sixteenth century, the introduction of black servants into European courts further reinforced that reading, while a tendentious interpretation of the Bible and of Ham's curse (Genesis 9:25, 10:6) was used to rubber-stamp this negative color coding.

On the part of Africans, interaction with the Portuguese andnineteenth-century colonization brought about, on the one hand, assimilationbetween white, water, beauty, power, and riches, and, on the other, betweenlight and religious purity.18 Yet other, negative connotations came into play, no doubt brought about by the colonial experience, connotations that match the ambivalent character of the spirits, as already noted by Görög-Karady 1976:240). In Igbo language, for example, white is associated with laziness(ura ndi ocha = the "white sleep," that is, a lie-in, sleeping at a time when one is expected to be awake and busy working) and alienation (oru oyibo = "white work," initiated by the white and destined to benefit them only, that is, nobody's job, a job that neither benefits nor concerns workers). Such expressions widen the gap between blacks and whites. On the other hand,Igbo language does not restrict the term "white" to Europeans but extends it to fair-skinned Igbo and even albinos although in Nigerian English, these last two groups are more likely to be called "yellow"...