Here is my last 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, though that article provides much more material that is pertinent to the topic of this thread.

[page 260]

In the French tradition,the world of spirits is close yet rather feared and characterized by a clear duality: God and the saints are good; the devil and demons are bad. In themiddle, we find familiar spirits and the ghosts of purgatory souls, whose status is rather ambivalent yet inoffensive. In Nigeria, while spirits are clearly discerned as different, encounters with them are common and reveal these beings as human-like in character—ambivalent and unpredictable,having feelings and capable of both the best and the worst. What differentiates them, in the end, is thus more their spirit status than their character.

It follows that in folktales the giving of a color or a shape to a personis not a reflection of reality:21it only tags the person or object as alien. Colorhas therefore no inherent value—it is only used as a marker of identity. Allocating a color to persons/objects amounts to extracting them from the unknown, taming them, pre-empting the harm their interaction could inflict,and disabling them by classifying them within cultural parameters. The disguise one observes in folktales, with the devil and other evil spirits optingto change their color/appearance in order to appear human, is a rejection ofthe categorization that would prevent them from interacting with people—just as concealment through color change is widespread in the animal world,from fish to chameleon...

Masquerades, whether in Switzerland or in Nigeria, also reveal people camouflaging themselves with soot, wooden masks, and cloth to embodyancestral spirits, and changing color and shape in order to interact with thosespirits. Color is thus an essential tool of both categorization and communication, as color symbolism is known to be instantly read and decoded within cultures"...

Alternative Readings

pages 262,

"Whatever the type of difference highlighted by folktales—deformityor darker skin—the message is the same: "acceptable" human beings looklike you and me; they share our skin color and our features and are thereforedeemed acceptable, as corresponding to our canon of beauty. Foreigners,however, look different; they are perceived as animal-like or monstrous, andthe reading of their features justifies their separation and facilitates theirrejection. That is why the miller's wife rebukes the devil with thisexclamation: "What are you here for? Blacks are not welcome here!"(Méraville 1970:158)

One must say that the message from folktales is not always that clear,in that "one way literature projects its knowledge and thought is through . . .allegory" (Fletcher 1991:93). There are a number of reasons for the encoding of the message. Folktales are part of oral literature, a heavily encoded lore as one can verify from the study of traditional songs. As such,they aim at a mixed audience and thus offer several layers of meaning which each group deciphers with the help of the social keys available to it––children usually take the text at face value, while adults and initiates read far more into it. The encoding allows the message to be delivered indiscriminately while still respecting cultural taboos Such a rendering finally excludes outsiders, who may not possess the cues that would enable them to understand the whole meaning of the tale. The same applies to color terms; used "with a belief in their power to communicate" (ibid.: 101), they do so, yet selectively."