Colours of protection and healing

On 1 March people give each other martenitsi, small tassels or dolls of red and white thread. They are worn until the first stork or blossoming tree is seen.

Officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police wear the Red Serge, a scarlet tunic with a high collar, on ceremonial duty. It is one of the best known images of the country abroad.

Empty red dresses hung in public places stand for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. The idea comes from the REDress Project by the Metis artist Jaime Black.

Each November people pin on a red paper poppy to remember those killed in war. The flower grew on the battlefields of Flanders in the First World War.

Post boxes, telephone kiosks and London buses share a bright red. Post boxes were painted green at first and changed to red from 1874 so that they were easier to find.

On 1 March children tie on a martis, a bracelet of twisted red and white thread. It is worn until the end of the month and is said to protect the skin from the spring sun.

Some people wear a thin red string around the left wrist against the evil eye. The strings are often said to have been wound around Rachel's Tomb near Bethlehem. It is a folk custom.

On the last Tuesday night before Nowruz, people jump over small bonfires and chant a line that gives their yellow, meaning sickness, to the fire and takes its red, meaning health.

The torii gates of Shinto shrines are often painted vermilion, a bright orange-red. The colour is held to keep evil away, and the long tunnels of gates at Fushimi Inari are the best known.

Maasai herders wrap themselves in the shuka, a cloth that is most often red. Red stands for bravery and for blood, and is held to frighten off lions.

Himba women cover their skin and plaited hair with otjize, a paste of butterfat and red ochre. It protects against sun and insects and is held to be beautiful.

On 1 March people give a martisor, a small charm on a red and white twisted cord, to welcome spring. It is worn pinned to the coat for several days or weeks.

Turkmen carpets are woven in deep reds with repeated medallions called gul. A bride's dress is traditionally red too, worn with heavy silver jewellery.

Traditional embroidered shirts, vyshyvanky, are most often stitched in red and black. A well-loved song says that red is for love and black is for sorrow.

Amber from the Baltic shore is called Lithuanian gold. Strings of amber beads are part of women's national dress.

Obangsaek is the set of five traditional colours: blue, red, yellow, white and black, one for each direction and the centre. Yellow is the centre. Children's striped saekdong sleeves use the set.

The luzzu, the traditional fishing boat, is painted in bright yellow, blue, red and green. A pair of eyes on the bow is said to guard the fishermen at sea.

A yellow ribbon tied round a tree or pinned to a coat means someone is waiting for a loved one to come home. It spread during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979 to 1981.

School buses across the country are painted one shade of yellow, agreed at a conference in 1939 because black lettering on it is easy to read in early morning light.

Strings of Buddhist prayer flags come in five colours in a fixed order: blue for sky, white for air, red for fire, green for water and yellow for earth.

Pounamu, greenstone, is found only in the South Island. Maori carve it into pendants such as the hei-tiki, which are treasures handed down through families and are usually given, not bought for oneself.

Turquoise, firuzeh in Persian, has been mined near Nishapur for thousands of years. It is worn against the evil eye, and its colour covers the domes of mosques in Isfahan.

The chadari is a full-length covering for women with a mesh panel over the eyes. In Kabul and the north it is most often a light blue.

Ancient craftsmen made Egyptian blue, one of the first synthetic pigments, and blue-glazed faience for amulets. Blue stood for the sky and the Nile.

Many households hang a blue glass bead with an eye on it by the door or in the car to keep off the evil eye, known as hasad. Blue eye beads were already made in ancient Egypt.

A blue glass eye, the mati, is worn on a chain or hung in homes and cars against the evil eye. Blue is held to be the colour that turns the harm back.

The Ishtar Gate of Babylon, built under Nebuchadnezzar II, was faced with deep blue glazed bricks set with bulls and dragons. The blue imitated lapis lazuli.

The old town of Chefchaouen in the Rif mountains is washed in shades of blue. The reasons given vary: a Jewish custom, keeping houses cool, or keeping mosquitoes away.

Tuareg men of the Sahara wear the tagelmust, a long veil and turban dyed with indigo. The dye rubs off on the skin, which is why they are called the blue people.

Adire is the indigo-dyed cloth of the Yoruba, made by women in Abeokuta and Ibadan. Patterns are tied, stitched or painted with cassava paste before the cloth goes into the dye.

In the cliff-top village of Sidi Bou Said every door, shutter and window grille is painted blue against white walls. The rule is kept by local law.

The nazar boncugu is a blue glass bead with a white and dark blue eye. It hangs on doors, cars and babies' clothes to turn away the evil eye.

The Purple Heart is the medal given to members of the armed forces wounded or killed in action. It is a purple heart with a profile of George Washington.

The third day of the New Year's Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground is Jane McGrath Day. The crowd wears pink to raise money for breast cancer nurses.

The Homomonument in Amsterdam is made of three triangles of pink granite. It turns the pink triangle, the Nazi camp badge for gay men, into a memorial.

The pink ribbon has stood for breast cancer awareness since the early 1990s. Each October, sports teams and shops turn pink for the cause.

Bogolanfini, or mud cloth, is cotton painted with fermented river mud in browns, black and white. Hunters wear it for protection, and women after childbirth.

A red cross on white, the Swiss flag reversed, marks medical staff and aid workers in war and must not be attacked under the Geneva Conventions.

The ak kalpak is a tall white felt hat worn by men. Its shape recalls a snow peak, and it is treated with respect: it should not be put on the ground.

In the baci ceremony, elders tie white cotton threads around a person's wrists to call back their wandering spirits and wish them well. The threads are left on for three days.

At Parihaka in Taranaki, the followers of Te Whiti and Tohu wore white feathers, raukura, as a sign of peaceful resistance to the taking of their land.

The everyday dress of Saudi men is the thobe, a long white robe. White cotton reflects the sun, and darker wool thobes come out in winter.

Xhosa boys going through initiation into manhood cover their bodies in white clay while they live apart from the village. It is washed off when they return as men.

In Bali, a black and white chequered cloth called poleng is wrapped around statues, shrines and large trees. It shows the balance of opposites and marks a place as guarded.

A dot of black kajal is often put on a baby's cheek or forehead to turn away the evil eye, called nazar. Many people avoid black clothes at weddings and festivals.