Yellow people

“ The flaxen, the auburn, the brown hair alike take black. Light eyes and dark are undistinguishable; the clearest complexion becomes muddy [Pg 207] and full of lines if the color of the dress is such as to throw the shade upon it.
A mixture of colors in dress in which either two of the primitives predominate, is a token of barbarism, even if occurring among so-called enlightened people.
Color is an exponent of the degree of civilization.
Red finds its fitness among savage races, and with undeveloped natures.
Yellow indicates transition from barbarism to civilization. ”

“ Chinese yellow is used largely in studios in place of white in make-up because it does not cause halation, which, to the picture people, is the bane of their existence. White is too glaring, reflects rays that blur the photography sometimes.
"If you will notice, the next time you see them shooting a scene, you will find the actors' faces tinged with yellow. ”

“ The human skin develops pigments to protect itself against a strong sun, and the quantity of pigment in the skin varies with the intensity of the sun.
“It is therefore the men who live in the hottest and least shaded parts of the world—that is to say, in the African, that we find the blackest skin. The white peoples, on the contrary, are confined to a region where the humidity of the atmosphere forms a screen against the rays of the sun. Finally, between the Negro and the White, is the Yellow man, who is a product of desiccating grasslands with seasonal extremes of temperature.” ”

“ He had deliberately shut out the world, and knew it only by rumour as a place where people committed intolerable follies both of body and mind, rearing children to reap what they had sown, loving with preposterous fatuity and a devotion, Pierre Gascon in his blind soul believed, a hundred times more worthy than its object. ”

“ I am not one to crawl into Heaven that way. I will be borne across my diocese with pomp, and the clashing of spears and shields about me; and I will be entering Rosscarbery with my bells tolling and my priests chanting as they walk two by two, and all the people wailing at the sides of the path—and kneeling, mind you, as I pass on my way, with this great relic still in my hands. ”

“ Nature provides pigments of color to guard the skin against the inclemencies of sun and weather. Every modern man knows and 70has experienced the result of strong sun and wind in his own skin. “Tan” it is called, and sometimes, within a few weeks the color of a white man’s skin is transformed into a yellow or a dark brown. If the exposure continues, the color remains.
In the opinion of noted scientists, it is certain that the difference between the races as to color is merely skin deep. ”

“ Standing perfectly naked at door-ways, or playing naked in the sun, astonishing children may sometimes be seen,—banana-colored or orange babies. There is one rare race-type, totally unlike the rest: the skin has a perfect gold-tone, an exquisite metallic yellow; the eyes are long, and have long silky lashes;—the hair is a mass of thick, rich, glossy curls that show blue lights in the sun. What mingling of races produced this beautiful type?—there is some strange blood in the blending,—not of coolie, nor of African, nor of Chinese, although there are Chinese types here of indubitable beauty. ”

“ In the early days of racial development there is a slight tendency for the red, the yellow, and the blue men to interbreed; there is a similar tendency for the orange, green, and indigo races to intermingle. ”

“ Won't it be funny to run across something yellow in this dismal blue country?"
"There are worse colors than yellow in this country," asserted the Glass Cat, in a spiteful tone.
"Oh; do you mean the pink pebbles you call your brains, and your red heart and green eyes?" ”

“ In the races called Yellow, three varieties of colour can likewise be distinguished: 4th, yellowish-white, a sickly hue the colour of wheat, as, for example, among certain Chinese; 5th, olive-yellow, the colour of new portmanteau leather, as among the majority of South American Indians, Polynesians, and Indonesians; 6th, dark yellow-brown, dark olive, or the colour of dead leaves, as among certain Americans, Malays, etc. In the dark-skinned races, four shades at least must be distinguished: 7th, red, copper-coloured, as, for example, among the Bejas, Niam-Niam, Fulbé ”

“ Thereʼs a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
Thereʼs a little marble cross below the town,
Thereʼs a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God for ever gazes down. ”

“ We find that among individuals of one particular race, whatever its so-called, and somewhat arbitrary, colour might be, there exist noticeable variations in shade. Red Indians have yellow or brown skins almost as frequently as a genuine red; the “white” races of Europe often have so dark a “complexion” that they are in reality brown; and the skin of a negro at times has a distinctly reddish or brownish hue. ”

“ One seeks the solution in the introduction of a yellow race, able to stand a tropical climate and intelligent enough to undertake those special avocations which in temperate climates would be filled by Europeans. The yellow race, most successful hitherto in Eastern Africa, is the native of Hindostan—that race in diverse types and diverse religions which, under British or Portuguese aegis, has created and developed the commerce of the East African littoral. ”

“ Yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow!
It is not a color.
It is summer!
It is the wind on a willow,
the lap of waves, the shadow
under a bush, a bird, a bluebird,
three herons, a dead hawk
rotting on a pole—
Clear yellow! ”

“ We took it for granted above that birds and mammals could discriminate between the red or yellow berry and the green foliage in whose midst it grows. Indeed, were other proof wanting, we should be justified in concluding that animals generally are possessed of a sense for the discrimination of color, from the mere fact that all those fruits and flowers which depend for their dispersion or fertilization upon animal agency are brightly tinted, while all those which depend upon the wind, or other insentient energies, are green or dull-brown in hue. ”

“ It must be borne in mind that there exists but a single character common to these American races, that is the colour of the skin, the ground of which is yellow. This appears to conflict with the current opinion that the Americans [Pg 517] are a red race, and yet it is the statement of a fact. None of the tribes of the New World have a red-coloured skin, unless they are painted, which often is the case. ”

“ When we look from the dropwort to its nearest relative, the common meadow-sweet, we see how great a charm the touch of rose-red has given to the first: the meadow-sweet has no expression of the kind we are considering—no human association.
In pure yellow flowers, as in pure white, human interest is wanting. It is true that yellow is a human colour, since in the hair we find yellows [Pg_148] of different shades—it is a pity that we cannot find, or have not found, a better word than "shades" for the specific differences of a colour. ”

“ The principal characteristics which distinguish the individuals and the families belonging to the Yellow race, are, high cheekbones, a lozenge-shaped head, a small flat nose, a flat countenance, narrow obliquely-set eyes, straight coarse black hair, a scanty beard, and a complexion of a greenish hue. ”

“ Yellow, as a color, finds but few admirers among modern enlightened nations; it is recognized as the color of shams; but in China, that country of contrarities, where printing, fish breeding, gas burning, and artesian wells have been known and stationary for centuries, where almond-shaped eyes, club feet, and long cues are types of beauty, where old men laughingly fly kites, and little boys look gravely on, where white is mourning, and everything is different from elsewhere—there yellow is the most admired of colors, restricted to the use of royalty alone under penalty of death. ”

“ When we consider the dull and impure yellows sometimes seen in flowers, and some soft yellows seen in combination with pleasing wholesome reds, as in the honeysuckle, we may find something of the expression—the human association—in yellow flowers. For there is yellow in the skin, even in perfect health; it appears strongest on the neck, and spread round to the throat and chin, and is a warm buff, very beautiful in some women ”

“ The yellow race, either pure or in places mixed with white elements, seems to be the only one which occupies the space in question; it peoples all the north, east, south-east, and west. In the south it is more mixed, but forms, nevertheless, an important element in the population.
The white race, from its allophylian representatives, seems to have disputed the central area itself with the yellow race. In early times, we find the Yu-tchi and the Ou-soun to the north of the Hoang-ho; and in the present day cases of white populations have been observed in Little Thibet and in Eastern Thibet. ”

“ But for mankind in general these results, undisputed as they probably are, do not hold universally good. There is one vast and highly important area of the world, by no means uncivilized in large part, where yellow, so far from being disparaged, is held in the highest honor. Throughout nearly the whole of Asia, ancient and modern—in Assyria, in India and in Ceylon, throughout China, in the Malay peninsula—yellow is usually the supreme and most sacred color. ”

“ Coloring and dying is carried on very generally, every woman seeming to understand it as almost a domestic necessity; also the manufacturing of indigo, the favorite and most common color of the country. Red comes next to this which is mostly obtained of camwood, another domestic employment of the women. Yellow is the next favorite color. Hence, blue, red, and yellow may be designated as the colors of Yoruba or Central Africa. ”

“ Conspicuous among its innumerable tints is yellow. Every shade, from the brilliant plumage of the yellow bird to the rich saffron of the orange, greets the eye in bewildering profusion. There is indeed other color, unparalleled in variety and abundance, but the ever-present background of all is the beautiful fifth color of the spectrum.
So prominent is this feature that it never fails to attract attention, and all descriptions of the Cañon abound in references to it. Lieutenant Doane (1870) notes the “brilliant yellow color” of the rocks. ”

“ The red effects this. To some it is most pleasing by its suggestion of easy grace and springy, elastic step. The yellow harmonizes and accentuates this chosen feeling. The blue often destroys its moral meaning. The red hampers the feeling for the Laocoön group. They become listless, dead, and have still strength, but no struggle. Yellow increases the amount of activity, but often lessens the "serious despair." Fierceness is added, but the liveliness thus furnished is at the expense of the necessary balancing solemnity. The color again becomes intrusive. ”

“ It must be cut then, wet or fine, or the quality and aroma of the hay passes away beyond recovery. Perhaps it is an accident that most of our meadow flowers are white or yellow. The two most striking exceptions are from foreign soil, the purple-blue lucerne and the crimson sainfoin. But yellow is not the universally predominant hue of the flowers of grasses, for in Switzerland and the Italian Alps the hayfields are as blue with campanulas as they are here yellow with buttercups. ”

“ Again, if in the vegetable world green almost universally colours the leaves, yellow has more to do with the flowers. The flowers we love best are yellow: the cowslip, the daffodil, the crocus, the buttercup, half the daisy, the honeysuckle, and the loveliest rose. Yellow, too, has its turn even with the leaves; and what an artist he shows himself when, in autumn, he 'lays his fiery finger' upon them, lighting up the forlorn woodland with splashes—pure palette-colour of audacious gold! ”

“ Look at the hundreds of advertised hair-dyes, used for the purpose of changing Nature! See men with their gray beards dyed black; women with those beautiful [Pg 388] black locks, which but yesterday were as white as the driven snow! Not only this, but even those with light or red whiskers run to the dye-kettle, steal a color which Nature has refused them, and an hour after curse the negro for a complexion that is not stolen. If black is so hateful, why do not gentlemen have their boots whitewashed? If the slaves of the South had been white, the same prejudice would have existed against them. ”

“ Whatever there is cruel, whatever there is devilish, whatever there is inhuman in the dark places of the world, shone out of the jewelled eyes which were set in that yellow female face, yellow because its substance was of gold, a face which seemed not to belong to the embryonic legs beneath, for body there was none, but to float above them. ”

“ Yellow superciliary stripe not well defined, and only a tinge of yellow on the jugulum, the throat being grayish-white. Wings and tail nearly as in the adult. The young in autumnal plumage is similar, but the yellow occupies its usual area; it is, however, much duller, as well as lighter, than in the adult. ”

“ According to Frank Chapman, the famous ornithologist at the Museum of Natural History in New York, the animals of the humid climate of the northwest are especially dark in color.
If you use yellow for the north color, yellow means laughter and mirth. Notwithstanding the fact that we use yellow as a sign for contagious disease, women suffragists and cowardice, a yellow light makes a gathering cheerful and merry; so in approaching the North Court you may sing.
The Indian names for the four courts are Too-le-ze, the east, for the south Too-winks, for the west Kor-le, and for the north Kon-win. ”

“ She leads the rounds of the fairies, and watches over change and growth. The Yellow Ancient dwells in the middle. He is always going about in the world, in order to save and to help those in any distress. The first time he came to earth he was the Yellow Lord, who taught mankind all sorts of arts. ”