Tsiligi Magic

Agasga ground the dried cat-tail into her stone pestle. She wiped the sweat from her nose and demanded, “Name the four colors, Tsiyi.”

“My name is John Franklin,” her son replied stonily. “They are Blue, White, Red, and Black.”

“More,” she said as she ground the cat-tail into a fine dust.

“Blue is of the North and so is trouble, Red rises from the East and it means success, White is from the South and so is happiness, and Black flows from the West and it carries Death,” he answered.

“What do the English say?”

“That our beliefs are superstitions.”