What do the colours of the stripes mean?
Nothing intentional. The four traditional colours (green, red, yellow and indigo) were simply colours that were popular and easily produced using good colourfast dyes at the time that the multistripe blanket was introduced about 1800. These four colours are sometimes known as Queen Anne’s colours since they first became popular during her reign (1702 – 1714).However, these colours have always had special significance for aboriginal people, who were, after all, Hbc’s original customers. Green is taken to mean “new life”, red often stands for “battle or hunt”, yellow relates to “harvest” and “sunshine” and blue represents “water”. Aboriginal people were very discerning, and colour patterns frequently changed to meet their requirements.The earliest reference to the multistripe pattern is from a 1798 order from the London HQ to Thomas Empson of Witney (Oxfordshire) for “30 pairs of 3 points to be striped with four colours (red, blue, green, yellow) according to your judgment.
Nothing intentional. The four traditional colours (green, red, yellow and indigo) were simply colours that were popular and easily produced using good colourfast dyes at the time that the multistripe blanket was introduced about 1800. These four colours are sometimes known as Queen Anne’s colours since they first became popular during her reign (1702 – 1714). However, these colours have always had special significance for aboriginal people, who were, after all, Hbc’s original customers. Green is taken to mean “new life”, red often stands for “battle or hunt”, yellow relates to “harvest” and “sunshine” and blue represents “water”. Aboriginal people were very discerning, and colour patterns frequently changed to meet their requirements. The earliest reference to the multistripe pattern is from a 1798 order from the London HQ to Thomas Empson of Witney (Oxfordshire) for “30 pairs of 3 points to be striped with four colours (red, blue, green, yellow) according to your judgment.” The modern
