Whats the origin of the tradition of tying yellow ribbons around trees? Why yellow?
The yellow ribbon may well be related to the miliraty sources cited below, but the tradition is much, MUCH older than that. It is very common to see today at memorials (not just war) in Russia, Iran, Central Asia, and India, and many Buddhists, Russian Orthodox and Muslims have incorperated it into their religious traditions. This image, for instance, is of a ‘prayer tree’ at Semey, in Kazakhstan: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4152/5016664801_f4d4c3fcc1.jpg Semey was the former site of the USSR’s nuclear testing, and this is at the memorial to those who were injured or died of radiation poisoning during the period. Looking at the research I have been doing lately, there appears to be a link between countries adopting this tradition and those that the Buddhist contingents of the Mongol armies of the 1220’s invaded. I would suggest that the Mongols spread this across Asia and Europe from the Tiebtan Buddhist hearlands they conquered early on, and that is was subsequently picked up by so
