Colours of purity and peace

An ordinary citizen's kabney is white with fringes. It must be worn to enter a dzong, the fortress that houses both monks and government offices.

A person newly initiated into Santeria, called an iyawo, dresses entirely in white for a year and keeps the head covered.

Algiers is called Alger la Blanche, the white city, for its whitewashed buildings. Women there once went out wrapped in the haik, a large white cloth.

Orthodox Christians go to church wrapped in the netela, a thin white cotton shawl. At Timkat, the feast of Epiphany, crowds in white follow the priests to the water.

Queen Victoria married in white silk and lace in 1840. Prints of the dress spread widely, and white became the usual colour for brides across the West.

White is worn for a baby's naming day, for thanksgiving after an illness and at the funeral of someone who died very old, when the family gives thanks for a long life.

In Vodou each spirit has its colours. White is for Danbala, the serpent spirit of wisdom, and people often wear white to ceremonies.

Muslims, the majority, wrap the dead in a plain white shroud, the kafan. In Bali, Hindus wear white to temple ceremonies and cremations.

On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, many Jews dress in white, and some men wear a white robe called a kittel. On kibbutzim, white is also worn for the harvest festival of Shavuot.

White is the Hindu colour of mourning. Families wear plain white to funerals, and in many communities widows traditionally wore white saris without ornament.

A bride at a Shinto wedding may wear the shiromuku, a kimono that is white from head to foot. White is also the colour of the paper streamers that mark sacred places.

The white edging on the flag stands for peace and honesty. In Maasai beadwork, white is the colour of milk and so of health and purity.

Koreans were long known as the white-clad people, because plain white hanbok was everyday dress for commoners well into the twentieth century.

White, ak, means pure and blessed in Kazakh. A common blessing is ak zhol, a white road, wishing someone a good journey through life.

Sinhalese Buddhists wear white to the temple and to funerals. White flags and banners are strung along the road to a house where someone has died.

The lunar New Year is Tsagaan Sar, the White Moon. White stands for milk and purity, and the table is laid with dairy foods called white foods.

In Yoruba religion, white belongs to Obatala, the orisha who shaped human bodies. His priests and followers wear white cloth and offer white foods.

Men on the pilgrimage to Mecca wear ihram, two pieces of plain unstitched white cloth. Dressed alike, a king and a labourer cannot be told apart.

Members of the governing People's Action Party wear white shirts and trousers at party events. The uniform is meant to show clean, honest government.

Women campaigning for the vote marched in white dresses. Women in Congress have worn white to presidential addresses in memory of them.

The pope wears a white cassock. When cardinals elect a new pope, white smoke rises from the Sistine Chapel chimney, and black smoke means no decision.

The wealthy citizens painted by Rembrandt and Frans Hals wear sober black with white collars. A good black was costly to dye, so it showed both wealth and Calvinist restraint.

Women traditionally wear the abaya, a loose black cloak, over their clothes in public. Coloured abayas have become more common in recent years.