Among the Yoruba color makes things happen
Painting for the Gods also explores the symbolism of color focusing on the temperament and characters of the orisa.
The affective qualities of color found on the shrine walls represent a means of veneration and worshiping of departed ancestors.
Color employed on orisa murals as well as on wooden sculptures might provide a new touchstone for evaluating African art and suggest a model for the interpretation of other African art objects.
The Yoruba believe in three color groupings called funfun, pupa and dudu. Each represents a different temperature and temperament.
Funfun includes white, silver, pale gray and chrome and evokes cold and coolness.
These colors are associated with age and wisdom.
Pupa includes red, pink, orange, and deep yellow and evokes warmth and heat.
These colors relate to Ogun, the hot god of iron and war who is associated with blood, hot iron, and the heat of battle.
Dudu falls in between funfun and pupa and represents temperatures and temperaments somewhere in between.
It includes dark and generally cool colors such as black, blue, indigo, purple, green, dark browns, red-browns and dark grays.
Also, different combinations of colors hold a variety of meanings.
A. Fun-Fun = white = icy cold colors and emotions
B. Pupa = red = fiery colors and emotions
C. Dudu = black = earthy colors and emotions
Funfun, pupa, and dudu are connected with powerful medicines that can heal, protect, or attack.
The heat of pupa, for example.
Bole pupa (reddish brown clay soil); Bole dudu (dark clay loamy soil); and Bole funfun. (light sandy clay soil)
A range of sacred colors and beaded forms make up the motifs in Yoruba beaded, ritual objects.
The orange, red pink and yellow tones belong to the color group known as Pupa, which refers to warm or hot tones.
The white, silver, pale gray and chrome colored beads belong to the color group known as Funfun, which refers to coolness.
Funfun is also associated with age and wisdom.
Bridging and mediating the opposite color tones of Pupa (hot) and Funfun (cool) colors are beaded designs that generally include dark, Dudu, shades: blue, purple, green, brown, black and dark gray.
Thus, bead colors are grouped according to human temperaments in the Yoruba culture.
This evokes not only a cognitive response to the sight of color, but also a sensory response of feeling. (Drewal and Mason, p.18.)
