THE SACRED NUMBER, ITS ORIGIN AND APPLICATIONS.
The number FOUR sacred in all American religions, and the key to
their symbolism.--Derived from the CARDINAL POINTS.--Appears
constantly in government, arts, rites, and myths.--The Cardinal
Points identified with the Four Winds, who in myths are the four
ancestors of the human race, and the four celestial rivers watering
the terrestrial Paradise.--Associations grouped around each
Cardinal Point.--From the number four was derived the symbolic
value of the number _Forty_, and the _Sign of the Cross_.
Every one familiar with the ancient religions of the world must have
noticed the mystic power they attach to certain numbers, and how these
numbers became the measures and formative quantities, as it were, of
traditions and ceremonies, and had a symbolical meaning nowise connected
with their arithmetical value. For instance, in many eastern religions,
that of the Jews among the rest, _seven_ was the most sacred number, and
after it, _four_ and _three_. The most cursory reader must have observed
in how many connections the seven is used in the Hebrew Scriptures,
occurring, in all, something over three hundred and sixty times, it is
said. Why these numbers were chosen rather than others has not been
clearly explained. Their sacred character dates beyond the earliest
history, and must have been coeval with the first expressions of the
religious sentiment. Only one of them, the FOUR, has any prominence in
the religions of the red race, but this is so marked and so universal,
that at a very early period in my studies I felt convinced that if the
reason for its adoption could be discovered, much of the apparent
confusion which reigns among them would be dispelled.
Such a reason must take its rise from some essential relation of man to
nature, everywhere prominent, everywhere the same. It is found in the
_adoration of the cardinal points_.
The red man, as I have said, was a hunter; he was ever wandering through
pathless forests, coursing over boundless prairies. It seems to the
white race not a faculty, but an instinct that guides him so unerringly.
He is never at a loss. Says a writer who has deeply studied his
character: "The Indian ever has the points of the compass present to his
mind, and expresses himself accordingly in words, although it shall be
of matters in his own house."[67-1]
The assumption of precisely four cardinal points is not of chance; it is
recognized in every language; it is rendered essential by the anatomical
structure of the body; it is derived from the immutable laws of the
universe. Whether we gaze at the sunset or the sunrise, or whether at
night we look for guidance to the only star of the twinkling thousands
that is constant to its place, the anterior and posterior planes of our
bodies, our right hands and our left coincide with the parallels and
meridians. Very early in his history did man take note of these four
points, and recognizing in them his guides through the night and the
wilderness, call them his gods. Long afterwards, when centuries of slow
progress had taught him other secrets of nature--when he had discerned
in the motions of the sun, the elements of matter, and the radicals of
arithmetic a repetition of this number--they were to him further
warrants of its sacredness. He adopted it as a regulating quantity in
his institutions and his arts; he repeated it in its multiples and
compounds; he imagined for it novel applications; he constantly
magnified its mystic meaning; and finally, in his philosophical
reveries, he called it the key to the secrets of the universe, "the
source of ever-flowing nature."[68-1]
In primitive geography the figure of the earth is a square plain; in the
legend of the Quiche's it is "shaped as a square, divided into four
parts, marked with lines, measured with cords, and suspended from the
heavens by a cord to its four corners and its four sides."[68-2] The
earliest divisions of territory were in conformity to this view. Thus it
was with ancient Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and China;[68-3] and in the
new world, the states of Peru, Araucania, the Muyscas, the Quiches, and
Tlascala were tetrarchies divided in accordance with, and in the first
two instances named after, the cardinal points. So their chief
cities--Cuzco, Quito, Tezcuco, Mexico, Cholula--were quartered by
streets running north, south, east, and west. It was a necessary result
of such a division that the chief officers of the government were four
in number, that the inhabitants of town and country, that the whole
social organization acquired a quadruplicate form. The official title of
the Incas was "Lord of the four quarters of the earth," and the
venerable formality in taking possession of land, both in their domain
and that of the Aztecs, was to throw a stone, to shoot an arrow, or to
hurl a firebrand to each of the cardinal points.[69-1] They carried out
the idea in their architecture, building their palaces in squares with
doors opening, their tombs with their angles pointing, their great
causeways running in these directions. These architectural principles
repeat themselves all over the continent; they recur in the sacred
structures of Yucatan, in the ancient cemetery of Teo-tihuacan near
Mexico, where the tombs are arranged along avenues corresponding exactly
to the parallels and meridians of the central tumuli of the sun and
moon;[69-2] and however ignorant we are about the mound builders of the
Mississippi valley, we know that they constructed their earthworks with
a constant regard to the quarters of the compass.
Nothing can be more natural than to take into consideration the regions
of the heavens in the construction of buildings; I presume that at any
time no one plans an edifice of pretensions without doing so. Yet this
is one of those apparently trifling transactions which in their origin
and applications have exerted a controlling influence on the history of
the human race.
When we reflect how indissolubly the mind of the primitive man is welded
to his superstitions, it were incredible that his social life and his
architecture could thus be as it were in subjection to one idea, and his
rites and myths escape its sway. As one might expect, it reappears in
these latter more vividly than anywhere else. If there is one formula
more frequently mentioned by travellers than another as an indispensable
preliminary to all serious business, it is that of smoking, and the
prescribed and traditional rule was that the first puff should be to the
sky, and then one to each of the corners of the earth, or the cardinal
points.[70-1] These were the spirits who made and governed the earth,
and under whatever difference of guise the uncultivated fancy portrayed
them, they were the leading figures in the tales and ceremonies of
nearly every tribe of the red race. These were the divine powers
summoned by the Chipeway magicians when initiating neophytes into the
mysteries of the meda craft. They were asked to a lodge of four poles,
to four stones that lay before its fire, there to remain four days, and
attend four feasts. At every step of the proceeding this number or its
multiples were repeated.[71-1] With their neighbors the Dakotas the
number was also distinctly sacred; it was intimately inwoven in all
their tales concerning the wakan power and the spirits of the air, and
their religious rites. The artist Catlin has given a vivid description
of the great annual festival of the Mandans, a Dakota tribe, and brings
forward with emphasis the ceaseless reiteration of this number from
first to last.[71-2] He did not detect its origin in the veneration of
the cardinal points, but the information that has since been furnished
of the myths of this stock leaves no doubt that such was the case.[71-3]
Proximity of place had no part in this similarity of rite. In the grand
commemorative festival of the Creeks called the Busk, which wiped out
the memory of all crimes but murder, which reconciled the proscribed
criminal to his nation and atoned for his guilt, when the new fire was
kindled and the green corn served up, every dance, every invocation,
every ceremony, was shaped and ruled by the application of the number
four and its multiples in every imaginable relation. So it was at that
solemn probation which the youth must undergo to prove himself worthy of
the dignities of manhood and to ascertain his guardian spirit; here
again his fasts, his seclusions, his trials, were all laid down in
fourfold arrangement.[72-1]
Not alone among these barbarous tribes were the cardinal points thus the
foundation of the most solemn mysteries of religion. An excellent
authority relates that the Aztecs of Micla, in Guatemala, celebrated
their chief festival four times a year, and that four priests solemnized
its rites. They commenced by invoking and offering incense to the sky
and the four cardinal points; they conducted the human victim four times
around the temple, then tore out his heart, and catching the blood in
four vases scattered it in the same directions.[72-2] So also the
Peruvians had four principal festivals annually, and at every new moon
one of four days' duration. In fact the repetition of the number in all
their religious ceremonies is so prominent that it has been a subject of
comment by historians. They have attributed it to the knowledge of the
solstices and equinoxes, but assuredly it is of more ancient date than
this. The same explanation has been offered for its recurrence among the
Nahuas of Mexico, whose whole lives were subjected to its operation. At
birth the mother was held unclean for four days, a fire was kindled and
kept burning for a like length of time, at the baptism of the child an
arrow was shot to each of the cardinal points. Their prayers were
offered four times a day, the greatest festivals were every fourth year,
and their offerings of blood were to the four points of the compass. At
death food was placed on the grave, as among the Eskimos, Creeks, and
Algonkins, for four days (for all these nations supposed that the
journey to the land of souls was accomplished in that time), and
mourning for the dead was for four months or four years.[73-1]
It were fatiguing and unnecessary to extend the catalogue much further.
Yet it is not nearly exhausted. From tribes of both continents and all
stages of culture, the Muyscas of Columbia and the Natchez of Louisiana,
the Quiches of Guatemala and the Caribs of the Orinoko, instance after
instance might be marshalled to illustrate how universally a sacred
character was attached to this number, and how uniformly it is traceable
to a veneration of the cardinal points. It is sufficient that it be
displayed in some of its more unusual applications.
It is well known that the calendar common to the Aztecs and Mayas
divides the month into four weeks, each containing a like number of
secular days; that their indiction is divided into four periods; and
that they believed the world had passed through four cycles. It has not
been sufficiently emphasized that in many of the picture writings these
days of the week are placed respectively north, south, east, and west,
and that in the Maya language the quarters of the indiction still bear
the names of the cardinal points, hinting the reason of their
adoption.[74-1] This cannot be fortuitous. Again, the division of the
year into four seasons--a division as devoid of foundation in nature as
that of the ancient Aryans into three, and unknown among many tribes,
yet obtained in very early times among Algonkins, Cherokees, Choctaws,
Creeks, Aztecs, Muyscas, Peruvians, and Araucanians. They were supposed
to be produced by the unending struggles and varying fortunes of the
four aerial giants who rule the winds.
We must seek in mythology the key to the monotonous repetition and the
sanctity of this number; and furthermore, we must seek it in those
natural modes of expression of the religious sentiment which are above
the power of blood or circumstance to control. One of these modes, we
have seen, was that which led to the identification of the divinity with
the wind, and this it is that solves the enigma in the present instance.
Universally the spirits of the cardinal points were imagined to be in
the winds that blew from them. The names of these directions and of the
corresponding winds are often the same, and when not, there exists an
intimate connection between them. For example, take the languages of the
Mayas, Huastecas, and Moscos of Central America; in all of them the word
for _north_ is synonymous with _north wind_, and so on for the other
three points of the compass. Or again, that of the Dakotas, and the word
_tate-ouye-toba_, translated "the four quarters of the heavens," means
literally, "whence the four winds come."[75-1] It were not difficult to
extend the list; but illustrations are all that is required. Let it be
remembered how closely the motions of the air are associated in thought
and language with the operations of the soul and the idea of God; let it
further be considered what support this association receives from the
power of the winds on the weather, bringing as they do the lightning and
the storm, the zephyr that cools the brow, and the tornado that levels
the forest; how they summon the rain to fertilize the seed and refresh
the shrivelled leaves; how they aid the hunter to stalk the game, and
usher in the varying seasons; how, indeed, in a hundred ways, they
intimately concern his comfort and his life; and it will not seem
strange that they almost occupied the place of all other gods in the
mind of the child of nature. Especially as those who gave or withheld
the rains were they objects of his anxious solicitation. "Ye who dwell
at the four corners of the earth--at the north, at the south, at the
east, and at the west," commenced the Aztec prayer to the Tlalocs, gods
of the showers.[75-2] For they, as it were, hold the food, the life of
man in their power, garnered up on high, to grant or deny, as they see
fit. It was from them that the prophet of old was directed to call back
the spirits of the dead to the dry bones of the valley. "Prophesy unto
the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, thus saith the Lord
God, come forth from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these
slain, that they may live." (Ezek. xxxvii. 9.)
In the same spirit the priests of the Eskimos prayed to _Sillam Innua_,
the Owner of the Winds, as the highest existence; the abode of the dead
they called _Sillam Aipane_, the House of the Winds; and in their
incantations, when they would summon a new soul to the sick, or order
back to its home some troublesome spirit, their invocations were ever
addressed to the winds from the cardinal points--to Pauna the East and
Sauna the West, to Kauna the South and Auna the North.[76-1]
As the rain-bringers, as the life-givers, it were no far-fetched
metaphor to call them the fathers of our race. Hardly a nation on the
continent but seems to have had some vague tradition of an origin from
four brothers, to have at some time been led by four leaders or princes,
or in some manner to have connected the appearance and action of four
important personages with its earliest traditional history. Sometimes
the myth defines clearly these fabled characters as the spirits of the
winds, sometimes it clothes them in uncouth, grotesque metaphors,
sometimes again it so weaves them into actual history that we are at a
loss where to draw the line that divides fiction from truth.
I shall attempt to follow step by step the growth of this myth from its
simplest expression, where the transparent drapery makes no pretence to
conceal its true meaning, through the ever more elaborate narratives,
the more strongly marked personifications of more cultivated nations,
until it assumes the outlines of, and has palmed itself upon the world
as actual history.
This simplest form is that which alone appears among the Algonkins and
Dakotas. They both traced their lives back to four ancestors, personages
concerned in various ways with the first things of time, not rightly
distinguished as men or gods, but very positively identified with the
four winds. Whether from one or all of these the world was peopled,
whether by process of generation or some other more obscure way, the old
people had not said, or saying, had not agreed.[77-1]
It is a shade more complex when we come to the Creeks. They told of four
men who came from the four corners of the earth, who brought them the
sacred fire, and pointed out the seven sacred plants. They were called
the Hi-you-yul-gee. Having rendered them this service, the kindly
visitors disappeared in a cloud, returning whence they came. When
another and more ancient legend informs us that the Creeks were at first
divided into four clans, and alleged a descent from four female
ancestors, it will hardly be venturing too far to recognize in these
four ancestors the four friendly patrons from the cardinal points.[78-1]
The ancient inhabitants of Haiti, when first discovered by the
Spaniards, had a similar genealogical story, which Peter Martyr relates
with various excuses for its silliness and exclamations at its
absurdity. Perhaps the fault lay less in its lack of meaning than in his
want of insight. It was to the effect that men lived in caves, and were
destroyed by the parching rays of the sun, and were destitute of means
to prolong their race, until they caught and subjected to their use four
women who were swift of foot and slippery as eels. These were the
mothers of the race of men. Or again, it was said that a certain king
had a huge gourd which contained all the waters of the earth; four
brothers, who coming into the world at one birth had cost their mother
her life, ventured to the gourd to fish, picked it up, but frightened by
the old king's approach, dropped it on the ground, broke it into
fragments, and scattered the waters over the earth, forming the seas,
lakes, and rivers, as they now are. These brothers in time became the
fathers of a nation, and to them they traced their lineage.[78-2] With
the previous examples before our eyes, it asks no vivid fancy to see in
these quaternions once more the four winds, the bringers of rain, so
swift and so slippery.
The Navajos are a rude tribe north of Mexico. Yet even they have an
allegory to the effect that when the first man came up from the ground
under the figure of the moth-worm, the four spirits of the cardinal
points were already there, and hailed him with the exclamation, "Lo, he
is of our race."[79-1] It is a poor and feeble effort to tell the same
old story.
The Haitians were probably relatives of the Mayas of Yucatan. Certainly
the latter shared their ancestral legends, for in an ancient manuscript
found by Mr. Stephens during his travels, it appears they looked back to
four parents or leaders called the Tutul Xiu. But, indeed, this was a
trait of all the civilized nations of Central America and Mexico. An
author who would be very unwilling to admit any mythical interpretation
of the coincidence, has adverted to it in tones of astonishment: "In all
the Aztec and Toltec histories there are four characters who constantly
reappear; either as priests or envoys of the gods, or of hidden and
disguised majesty; or as guides and chieftains of tribes during their
migrations; or as kings and rulers of monarchies after their foundation;
and even to the time of the conquest, there are always four princes who
compose the supreme government, whether in Guatemala, or in
Mexico."[79-2] This fourfold division points not to a common history,
but to a common nature. The ancient heroes and demigods, who, four in
number, figure in all these antique traditions, were not men of flesh
and blood, but the invisible currents of air who brought the fertilizing
showers.
They corresponded to the four gods Bacab, who in the Yucatecan mythology
were supposed to stand one at each corner of the world, supporting, like
gigantic caryatides, the overhanging firmament. When at the general
deluge all other gods and men were swallowed by the waters they alone
escaped to people it anew. These four, known by the names of Kan, Muluc,
Ix, and Cauac, represented respectively the east, north, west, and
south, and as in Oriental symbolism, so here each quarter of the compass
was distinguished by a color, the east by yellow, the south by red, the
west by black, and the north by white. The names of these mysterious
personages, employed somewhat as we do the Dominical letters, adjusted
the calendar of the Mayas, and by their propitious or portentous
combinations was arranged their system of judicial astrology. They were
the gods of rain, and under the title Chac, the Red Ones, were the chief
ministers of the highest power. As such they were represented in the
religious ceremonies by four old men, constant attendants on the high
priest in his official functions.[80-1] In this most civilized branch
of the red race, as everywhere else, we thus find four mythological
characters prominent beyond all others, giving a peculiar physiognomy to
the national legends, arts, and sciences, and in them once more we
recognize by signs infallible, personifications of the four cardinal
points and the four winds.
They rarely lose altogether their true character. The Quiche legends
tell us that the four men who were first created by the Heart of Heaven,
Hurakan, the Air in Motion, were infinitely keen of eye and swift of
foot, that "they measured and saw all that exists at the four corners
and the four angles of the sky and the earth;" that they did not fulfil
the design of their maker "to bring forth and produce when the season of
harvest was near," until he blew into their eyes a cloud, "until their
faces were obscured as when one breathes on a mirror." Then he gave them
as wives the four mothers of our species, whose names were Falling
Water, Beautiful Water, Water of Serpents, and Water of Birds.[81-1]
Truly he who can see aught but a transparent myth in this recital, is a
realist that would astonish Euhemerus himself.
There is in these Aztec legends a quaternion besides this of the first
men, one that bears marks of a profound contemplation on the course of
nature, one that answers to the former as the heavenly phase of the
earthly conception. It is seen in the four personages, or perhaps we
should say modes of action, that make up the one Supreme Cause of All,
Hurakan, the breath, the wind, the Divine Spirit. They are He who
creates, He who gives Form, He who gives Life, and He who
reproduces.[82-1] This acute and extraordinary analysis of the origin
and laws of organic life, clothed under the ancient belief in the action
of the winds, reveals a depth of thought for which we were hardly
prepared, and is perhaps the single instance of anything like
metaphysics among the red race. It is clearly visible in the earlier
portions of the legends of the Quiches, and is the more surely of native
origin as it has been quite lost on both their translators.
Go where we will, the same story meets us. The empire of the Incas was
attributed in the sacred chants of the Amautas, the priests assigned to
take charge of the records, to four brothers and their wives. These
mythical civilizers are said to have emerged from a cave called _Pacari
tampu_, which may mean "the House of Subsistence," reminding us of the
four heroes who in Aztec legend set forth to people the world from
Tonacatepec, the mountain of our subsistence; or again it may mean--for
like many of these mythical names it seems to have been designedly
chosen to bear a double construction--the Lodgings of the Dawn,
recalling another Aztec legend which points for the birthplace of the
race to Tula in the distant orient. The cave itself suggests to the
classical reader that of Eolus, or may be paralleled with that in which
the Iroquois fabled the winds were imprisoned by their lord.[83-1] These
brothers were of no common kin. Their voices could shake the earth and
their hands heap up mountains. Like the thunder god, they stood on the
hills and hurled their sling-stones to the four corners of the earth.
When one was overpowered he fled upward to the heaven or was turned into
stone, and it was by their aid and counsel that the savages who
possessed the land renounced their barbarous habits and commenced to
till the soil. There can be no doubt but that this in turn is but
another transformation of the Protean myth we have so long
pursued.[83-2]
There are traces of the same legend among many other tribes of the
continent, but the trustworthy reports we have of them are too scanty to
permit analysis. Enough that they are mentioned in a note, for it is
every way likely that could we resolve their meaning they too would
carry us back to the four winds.[83-3]
Let no one suppose, however, that this was the only myth of the origin
of man. Far from it. It was but one of many, for, as I shall hereafter
attempt to show, the laws that governed the formations of such myths not
only allowed but enjoined great divergence of form. Equally far was it
from being the only image which the inventive fancy hit upon to express
the action of the winds as the rain bringers. They too were many, but
may all be included in a twofold division, either as the winds were
supposed to flow in from the corners of the earth or outward from its
central point. Thus they are spoken of under such figures as four
tortoises at the angles of the earthly plane who vomit forth the
rains,[85-1] or four gigantic caryatides who sustain the heavens and
blow the winds from their capacious lungs,[85-2] or more frequently as
four rivers flowing from the broken calabash on high, as the Haitians,
draining the waters of the primitive world,[85-3] as four animals who
bring from heaven the maize,[85-4] as four messengers whom the god of
air sends forth, or under a coarser trope as the spittle he ejects
toward the cardinal points which is straightway transformed into wild
rice, tobacco, and maize.[85-5]
Constantly from the palace of the lord of the world, seated on the high
hill of heaven, blow four winds, pour four streams, refreshing and
fecundating the earth. Therefore, in the myths of ancient Iran there is
mention of a celestial fountain, Arduisur, the virgin daughter of
Ormuzd, whence four all nourishing rivers roll their waves toward the
cardinal points; therefore the Thibetans believe that on the sacred
mountain Himavata grows the tree of life Zampu, from whose foot once
more flow the waters of life in four streams to the four quarters of the
world; and therefore it is that the same tale is told by the Chinese of
the mountain Kouantun, by the Brahmins of Mount Meru, and by the Parsees
of Mount Albors in the Caucasus.[85-6] Each nation called their sacred
mountain "the navel of the earth;" for not only was it the supposed
centre of the habitable world, but through it, as the foetus through
the umbilical cord, the earth drew her increase. Beyond all other spots
were they accounted fertile, scenes of joyous plaisance, of repose, and
eternal youth; there rippled the waters of health, there blossomed the
tree of life; they were fit trysting spots of gods and men. Hence came
the tales of the terrestrial paradise, the rose garden of Feridun, the
Eden gardens of the world. The name shows the origin, for paradise (in
Sanscrit, _para desa_) means literally _high land_. There, in the
unanimous opinion of the Orient, dwelt once in unalloyed delight the
first of men; thence driven by untoward fate, no more anywhere could
they find the path thither. Some thought that in the north among the
fortunate Hyperboreans, others that in the mountains of the moon where
dwelt the long lived Ethiopians, and others again that in the furthest
east, underneath the dawn, was situate the seat of pristine happiness;
but many were of opinion that somewhere in the western sea, beyond the
pillars of Hercules and the waters of the Outer Ocean, lay the garden of
the Hesperides, the Islands of the Blessed, the earthly Elysion.
It is not without design that I recall this early dream of the religious
fancy. When Christopher Columbus, fired by the hope of discovering this
terrestrial paradise, broke the enchantment of the cloudy sea and found
a new world, it was but to light upon the same race of men, deluding
themselves with the same hope of earthly joys, the same fiction of a
long lost garden of their youth. They told him that still to the west,
amid the mountains of Paria, was a spot whence flowed mighty streams
over all lands, and which in sooth was the spot he sought;[87-1] and
when that baseless fabric had vanished, there still remained the fabled
island of Boiuca, or Bimini, hundreds of leagues north of Hispaniola,
whose glebe was watered by a fountain of such noble virtue as to restore
youth and vigor to the worn out and the aged.[87-2] This was no fiction
of the natives to rid themselves of burdensome guests. Long before the
white man approached their shores, families had started from Cuba,
Yucatan, and Honduras in search of these renovating waters, and not
returning, were supposed by their kindred to have been detained by the
delights of that enchanted land, and to be revelling in its seductive
joys, forgetful of former ties.[87-3]
Perhaps it was but another rendering of the same belief that pointed to
the impenetrable forests of the Orinoko, the ancient homes of the Caribs
and Arowacks, and there located the famous realm of El Dorado with its
imperial capital Manoa, abounding in precious metals and all manner of
gems, peopled by a happy race, and governed by an equitable ruler.
The Aztec priests never chanted more regretful dirges than when they
sang of Tulan, the cradle of their race, where once it dwelt in peaceful
indolent happiness, whose groves were filled with birds of sweet voices
and gay plumage, whose generous soil brought forth spontaneously maize,
cocoa, aromatic gums, and fragrant flowers. "Land of riches and plenty,
where the gourds grow an arm's length across, where an ear of corn is a
load for a stout man, and its stalks are as high as trees; land where
the cotton ripens of its own accord of all rich tints; land abounding
with limpid emeralds, turquoises, gold, and silver."[88-1] This land was
also called Tlalocan, from Tlaloc, the god of rain, who there had his
dwelling place, and Tlapallan, the land of colors, or the red land, for
the hues of the sky at sunrise floated over it. Its inhabitants were
surnamed children of the air, or of Quetzalcoatl, and from its centre
rose the holy mountain Tonacatepec, the mountain of our life or
subsistence. Its supposed location was in the east, whence in that
country blow the winds that bring mild rains, says Sahagun, and that
missionary was himself asked, as coming from the east, whether his home
was in Tlapallan; more definitely by some it was situated among the
lofty peaks on the frontiers of Guatemala, and all the great rivers that
water the earth were supposed to have their sources there.[88-2] But
here, as elsewhere, its site was not determined. "There is a Tulan,"
says an ancient authority, "where the sun rises, and there is another in
the land of shades, and another where the sun reposes, and thence came
we; and still another where the sun reposes, and there dwells
God."[89-1]
The myth of the Quiches but changes the name of this pleasant land. With
them it was _Pan-paxil-pa-cayala_, where the waters divide in falling,
or between the waters parcelled out and mucky. This was "an excellent
land, full of pleasant things, where was store of white corn and yellow
corn, where one could not count the fruits, nor estimate the quantity of
honey and food." Over it ruled the lord of the air, and from it the
four sacred animals carried the corn to make the flesh of men.[90-1]
Once again, in the legends of the Mixtecas, we hear the old story
repeated of the garden where the first two brothers dwelt. It lay
between a meadow and that lofty peak which supports the heavens and the
palaces of the gods. "Many trees were there, such as yield flowers and
roses, very luscious fruits, divers herbs, and aromatic spices." The
names of the brothers were the Wind of Nine Serpents and the Wind of
Nine Caverns. The first was as an eagle, and flew aloft over the waters
that poured around their enchanted garden; the second was as a serpent
with wings, who proceeded with such velocity that he pierced rocks and
walls. They were too swift to be seen by the sharpest eye, and were one
near as they passed, he was only aware of a whisper and a rustling like
that of the wind in the leaves.[90-2]
Wherever, in short, the lust of gold lured the early adventurers, they
were told of some nation a little further on, some wealthy and
prosperous land, abundant and fertile, satisfying the desire of the
heart. It was sometimes deceit, and it was sometimes the credited
fiction of the earthly paradise, that in all ages has with a promise of
perfect joy consoled the aching heart of man.
It is instructive to study the associations that naturally group
themselves around each of the cardinal points, and watch how these are
mirrored on the surface of language, and have directed the current of
thought. Jacob Grimm has performed this task with fidelity and beauty as
regards the Aryan race, but the means are wanting to apply his searching
method to the indigenous tongues of America. Enough if in general terms
their mythological value be determined.
When the day begins, man wakes from his slumbers, faces the rising sun,
and prays. The east is before him; by it he learns all other directions;
it is to him what the north is to the needle; with reference to it he
assigns in his mind the position of the three other cardinal
points.[91-1] There is the starting place of the celestial fires, the
home of the sun, the womb of the morning. It represents in space the
beginning of things in time, and as the bright and glorious creatures of
the sky come forth thence, man conceits that his ancestors also in
remote ages wandered from the orient; there in the opinion of many in
both the old and new world was the cradle of the race; there in Aztec
legend was the fabled land of Tlapallan, and the wind from the east was
called the wind of Paradise, Tlalocavitl.
From this direction came, according to the almost unanimous opinion of
the Indian tribes, those hero gods who taught them arts and religion,
thither they returned, and from thence they would again appear to resume
their ancient sway. As the dawn brings light, and with light is
associated in every human mind the ideas of knowledge, safety,
protection, majesty, divinity, as it dispels the spectres of night, as
it defines the cardinal points, and brings forth the sun and the day,
it occupied the primitive mind to an extent that can hardly be magnified
beyond the truth. It is in fact the central figure in most natural
religions.
The west, as the grave of the heavenly luminaries, or rather as their
goal and place of repose, brings with it thoughts of sleep, of death, of
tranquillity, of rest from labor. When the evening of his days was come,
when his course was run, and man had sunk from sight, he was supposed to
follow the sun and find some spot of repose for his tired soul in the
distant west. There, with general consent, the tribes north of the Gulf
of Mexico supposed the happy hunting grounds; there, taught by the same
analogy, the ancient Aryans placed the Nerriti, the exodus, the land of
the dead. "The old notion among us," said on one occasion a
distinguished chief of the Creek nation, "is that when we die, the
spirit goes the way the sun goes, to the west, and there joins its
family and friends who went before it."[92-1]
In the northern hemisphere the shadows fall to the north, thence blow
cold and furious winds, thence come the snow and early thunder. Perhaps
all its primitive inhabitants, of whatever race, thought it the seat of
the mighty gods.[92-2] A floe of ice in the Arctic Sea was the home of
the guardian spirit of the Algonkins;[92-3] on a mountain near the north
star the Dakotas thought Heyoka dwelt who rules the seasons; and the
realm of Mictla, the Aztec god of death, lay where the shadows pointed.
From that cheerless abode his sceptre reached over all creatures, even
the gods themselves, for sooner or later all must fall before him. The
great spirit of the dead, said the Ottawas, lives in the dark
north,[93-1] and there, in the opinion of the Monquis of California,
resided their chief god, Gumongo.[93-2]
Unfortunately the makers of vocabularies have rarely included the words
north, south, east, and west, in their lists, and the methods of
expressing these ideas adopted by the Indians can only be partially
discovered. The east and west were usually called from the rising and
setting of the sun as in our words orient and occident, but occasionally
from traditional notions. The Mayas named the west the greater, the east
the lesser debarkation; believing that while their culture hero Zamna
came from the east with a few attendants, the mass of the population
arrived from the opposite direction.[93-3] The Aztecs spoke of the east
as "the direction of Tlalocan," the terrestrial paradise. But for north
and south there were no such natural appellations, and consequently the
greatest diversity is exhibited in the plans adopted to express them.
The north in the Caddo tongue is "the place of cold," in Dakota "the
situation of the pines," in Creek "the abode of the (north) star," in
Algonkin "the home of the soul," in Aztec "the direction of Mictla" the
realm of death, in Quiche and Quichua, "to the right hand;"[93-4] while
for the south we find such terms as in Dakota "the downward direction,"
in Algonkin "the place of warmth," in Quiche "to the left hand," while
among the Eskimos, who look in this direction for the sun, its name
implies "before one," just as does the Hebrew word _kedem_, which,
however, this more southern tribe applied to the east.
We can trace the sacredness of the number four in other curious and
unlooked-for developments. Multiplied into the number of the
fingers--the arithmetic of every child and ignorant man--or by adding
together the first four members of its arithmetical series (4 + 8 + 12 +
16), it gives the number forty. This was taken as a limit to the sacred
dances of some Indian tribes, and by others as the highest number of
chants to be employed in exorcising diseases. Consequently it came to be
fixed as a limit in exercises of preparation or purification. The
females of the Orinoko tribes fasted forty days before marriage, and
those of the upper Mississippi were held unclean the same length of time
after childbirth; such was the term of the Prince of Tezcuco's fast when
he wished an heir to his throne, and such the number of days the Mandans
supposed it required to wash clean the world at the deluge.[94-1]
No one is ignorant how widely this belief was prevalent in the old
world, nor how the quadrigesimal is still a sacred term with some
denominations of Christianity. But a more striking parallelism awaits
us. The symbol that beyond all others has fascinated the human mind, THE
CROSS, finds here its source and meaning. Scholars have pointed out its
sacredness in many natural religions, and have reverently accepted it as
a mystery, or offered scores of conflicting and often debasing
interpretations. It is but another symbol of the four cardinal points,
the four winds of heaven. This will luminously appear by a study of its
use and meaning in America.
The Catholic missionaries found it was no new object of adoration to the
red race, and were in doubt whether to ascribe the fact to the pious
labors of Saint Thomas or the sacrilegious subtlety of Satan. It was the
central object in the great temple of Cozumel, and is still preserved on
the bas-reliefs of the ruined city of Palenque. From time immemorial it
had received the prayers and sacrifices of the Aztecs and Toltecs, and
was suspended as an august emblem from the walls of temples in Popoyan
and Cundinamarca. In the Mexican tongue it bore the significant and
worthy name "Tree of Our Life," or "Tree of our Flesh" (Tonacaquahuitl).
It represented the god of rains and of health, and this was everywhere
its simple meaning. "Those of Yucatan," say the chroniclers, "prayed to
the cross as the god of rains when they needed water." The Aztec goddess
of rains bore one in her hand, and at the feast celebrated to her honor
in the early spring victims were nailed to a cross and shot with arrows.
Quetzalcoatl, god of the winds, bore as his sign of office "a mace like
the cross of a bishop;" his robe was covered with them strown like
flowers, and its adoration was throughout connected with his
worship.[96-1] When the Muyscas would sacrifice to the goddess of waters
they extended cords across the tranquil depths of some lake, thus
forming a gigantic cross, and at their point of intersection threw in
their offerings of gold, emeralds, and precious oils.[96-2] The arms of
the cross were designed to point to the cardinal points and represent
the four winds, the rain bringers. To confirm this explanation, let us
have recourse to the simpler ceremonies of the less cultivated tribes,
and see the transparent meaning of the symbol as they employed it.
When the rain maker of the Lenni Lenape would exert his power, he
retired to some secluded spot and drew upon the earth the figure of a
cross (its arms toward the cardinal points?), placed upon it a piece of
tobacco, a gourd, a bit of some red stuff, and commenced to cry aloud to
the spirits of the rains.[96-3] The Creeks at the festival of the Busk,
celebrated, as we have seen, to the four winds, and according to their
legends instituted by them, commenced with making the new fire. The
manner of this was "to place four logs in the centre of the square, end
to end, forming a cross, the outer ends pointing to the cardinal points;
in the centre of the cross the new fire is made."[97-1]
As the emblem of the winds who dispense the fertilizing showers it is
emphatically the tree of our life, our subsistence, and our health. It
never had any other meaning in America, and if, as has been said,[97-2]
the tombs of the Mexicans were cruciform, it was perhaps with reference
to a resurrection and a future life as portrayed under this symbol,
indicating that the buried body would rise by the action of the four
spirits of the world, as the buried seed takes on a new existence when
watered by the vernal showers. It frequently recurs in the ancient
Egyptian writings, where it is interpreted _life_; doubtless, could we
trace the hieroglyph to its source, it would likewise prove to be
derived from the four winds.
While thus recognizing the natural origin of this consecrated symbol,
while discovering that it is based on the sacredness of numbers, and
this in turn on the structure and necessary relations of the human
body, thus disowning the meaningless mysticism that Joseph de Maistre
and his disciples have advocated, let us on the other hand be equally on
our guard against accepting the material facts which underlie these
beliefs as their deepest foundation and their exhaustive explanation.
That were but withered fruit for our labors, and it might well be asked,
where is here the divine idea said to be dimly prefigured in mythology?
The universal belief in the sacredness of numbers is an instinctive
faith in an immortal truth; it is a direct perception of the soul, akin
to that which recognizes a God. The laws of chemical combination, of the
various modes of motion, of all organic growth, show that simple
numerical relations govern all the properties and are inherent to the
very constitution of matter; more marvellous still, the most recent and
severe inductions of physicists show that precisely those two numbers on
whose symbolical value much of the edifice of ancient mythology was
erected, the _four_ and the _three_, regulate the molecular distribution
of matter and preside over the symmetrical development of organic forms.
This asks no faith, but only knowledge; it is science, not revelation.
In view of such facts is it presumptuous to predict that experiment
itself will prove the truth of Kepler's beautiful saying: "The universe
is a harmonious whole, the soul of which is God; numbers, figures, the
stars, all nature, indeed, are in unison with the mysteries of
religion"?
FOOTNOTES:
[67-1] Buckingham Smith, _Gram. Notices of the Heve Language_, p. 26
(Shea's Lib. Am. Linguistics).
[68-1] I refer to the four "ultimate elementary particles" of
Empedocles. The number was sacred to Hermes, and lay at the root of the
physical philosophy of Pythagoras. The quotation in the text is from the
"Golden Verses," given in Passow's lexicon under the word ~tetraktys:
nai ma ton hametera psycha paradonta tetraktyn, pagan aenaou physeos~.
"The most sacred of all things," said this famous teacher, "is Number;
and next to it, that which gives Names;" a truth that the lapse of three
thousand years is just enabling us to appreciate.
[68-2] Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios_, etc., p. 5.
[68-3] See Sepp, _Heidenthum und dessen Bedeutung fuer das Christenthum_,
i. p. 464 sqq., a work full of learning, but written in the wildest vein
of Joseph de Maistre's school of Romanizing mythology.
[69-1] Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, ii. p. 227, _Le Livre Sacre des
Quiches_, introd. p. ccxlii. The four provinces of Peru were Anti, Cunti,
Chincha, and Colla. The meaning of these names has been lost, but to
repeat them, says La Vega, was the same as to use our words, east, west,
north, and south (_Hist. des Incas_, lib. ii. cap. 11).
[69-2] Humboldt, _Polit. Essay on New Spain_, ii. p. 44.
[70-1] This custom has been often mentioned among the Iroquois.
Algonkins, Dakotas, Creeks, Natchez, Araucanians, and other tribes.
Nuttall points out its recurrence among the Tartars of Siberia also.
(_Travels_, p. 175.)
[71-1] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, v. pp. 424 et seq.
[71-2] _Letters on the North American Indians_, vol. i., Letter 22.
[71-3] Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes_, iv. p. 643 sq. "Four is their sacred
number," says Mr. Pond (p. 646). Their neighbors, the Pawnees, though not
the most remote affinity can be detected between their languages,
coincide with them in this sacred number, and distinctly identified it
with the cardinal points. See De Smet, _Oregon Missions_, pp. 360, 361.
[72-1] Benj. Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, pp. 75, 78:
Savannah, 1848. The description he gives of the ceremonies of the Creeks
was transcribed word for word and published in the first volume of the
American Antiquarian Society's Transactions as of the Shawnees of Ohio.
This literary theft has not before been noticed.
[72-2] Palacios, _Des. de la Prov. de Guatemala_, pp. 31, 32, ed.
Ternaux-Compans.
[73-1] All familiar with Mexican antiquity will recall many such
examples. I may particularly refer to Kingsborough, _Antiqs. of Mexico_,
v. p. 480, Ternaux-Compans' _Recueil de pieces rel. a la Conq. du
Mexique_, pp. 307, 310, and Gama, _Des. de las dos Piedras que se
hallaron en la plaza principal de Mexico_, ii. sec. 126 (Mexico, 1832),
who gives numerous instances beyond those I have cited, and directs with
emphasis the attention of the reader to this constant repetition.
[74-1] Albert Gallatin, _Trans. Am. Ethnol. Soc._, ii. p. 316, from the
Codex Vaticanus, No. 3738.
[75-1] Riggs, _Gram. and Dict. of the Dakota Lang._, s. v.
[75-2] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, in Kingsborough, v. p. 375.
[76-1] Egede, _Nachrichten von Groenland_, pp. 137, 173, 285. (Kopenhagen,
1790.)
[77-1] Schoolcraft, _Algic Researches_, i. p. 139, and _Indian Tribes_,
iv. p. 229.
[78-1] Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, pp. 81, 82, and Blomes,
_Acc. of his Majesty's Colonies_, p. 156, London, 1687, in Castiglioni,
_Viaggi nelle Stati Uniti_, i. p. 294.
[78-2] Peter Martyr, _De Reb. Ocean._, Dec. i. lib. ix. The story is also
told more at length by the Brother Romain Pane, in the essay on the
ancient histories of the natives he drew up by the order of Columbus. It
has been reprinted with notes by the Abbe Brasseur, Paris, 1864, p. 438
sqq.
[79-1] Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv. p. 89.
[79-2] Brasseur, _Le Liv. Sac._, Introd., p. cxvii.
[80-1] Diego de Landa, _Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan_, pp. 160, 206, 208,
ed. Brasseur. The learned editor, in a note to p. 208, states erroneously
the disposition of the colors, as may be seen by comparing the document
on p. 395. This dedication of colors to the cardinal points is universal
in Central Asia. The geographical names of the Red Sea, the Black Sea,
the Yellow Sea or Persian Gulf, and the White Sea or the Mediterranean,
are derived from this association. The cities of China, many of them at
least, have their gates which open toward the cardinal points painted of
certain colors, and precisely these four, the white, the black, the red,
and the yellow, are those which in Oriental myth the mountain in the
centre of Paradise shows to the different cardinal points. (Sepp,
_Heidenthum und Christenthum_, i. p. 177.) The coincidence furnishes food
for reflection.
[81-1] _Le Livre Sacre des Quiches_, pp. 203-5, note.
[82-1] The analogy is remarkable between these and the "quatre actes de
la puissance generatrice jusqu'a l'entier developpement des corps
organises," portrayed by four globes in the Mycenean bas-reliefs. See
Guigniaut, _Religions de l'Antiquite_, i. p. 374. It were easy to
multiply the instances of such parallelism in the growth of religious
thought in the Old and New World, but I designedly refrain from doing so.
They have already given rise to false theories enough, and moreover my
purpose in this work is not "comparative mythology."
[83-1] Mueller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 105, after Strahlheim, who is,
however, no authority.
[83-2] Mueller, _ubi supra_, pp. 308 sqq., gives a good resume of the
different versions of the myth of the four brothers in Peru.
[83-3] The Tupis of Brazil claim a descent from four brothers, three of
whose names are given by Hans Staden, a prisoner among them about 1550,
as Krimen, Hermittan, and Coem; the latter he explains to mean the
morning, the east (_le matin_, printed by mistake _le mutin_, _Relation
de Hans Staden de Homberg_, p. 274, ed. Ternaux-Compans, compare Dias,
_Dicc. da Lingua Tupy_, p. 47). Their southern relatives, the Guaranis of
Paraguay, also spoke of the four brothers and gave two of their names as
Tupi and Guarani, respectively parents of the tribes called after them
(Guevara, _Hist. del Paraguay_, lib. i. cap. ii., in Waitz). The fourfold
division of the Muyscas of Bogota was traced back to four chieftains
created by their hero god Nemqueteba (A. von Humboldt, _Vues des
Cordilleres_, p. 246). The Nahuas of Mexico much more frequently spoke of
themselves as descendants of four or eight original families than of
seven (Humboldt, _ibid._, p. 317, and others in Waitz, _Anthropologie_,
iv. pp. 36, 37). The Sacs or Sauks of the Upper Mississippi supposed that
two men and two women were first created, and from these four sprang all
men (Morse, _Rep. on Ind. Affairs_, App. p. 138). The Ottoes, Pawnees,
"and other Indians," had a tradition that from eight ancestors all
nations and races were descended (Id., p. 249). This duplication of the
number probably arose from assigning the first four men four women as
wives. The division into clans or totems which prevails in most northern
tribes rests theoretically on descent from different ancestors. The
Shawnees and Natchez were divided into four such clans, the Choctaws,
Navajos, and Iroquois into eight, thus proving that in those tribes also
the myth I have been discussing was recognized.
[85-1] Mandans in Catlin, _Letts. and Notes_, i. p. 181.
[85-2] The Mayas, Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 8.
[85-3] The Navajos, Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv. p. 89.
[85-4] The Quiches, Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 79.
[85-5] The Iroquois, Mueller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 109.
[85-6] For these myths see Sepp, _Das Heidenthum und dessen Bedeutung fuer
das Christenthum_, i. p. 111 sqq. The interpretation is of course my own.
[87-1] Peter Martyr, _De Reb. Ocean._, Dec. iii., lib. ix. p. 195; Colon,
1574.
[87-2] Ibid., Dec. iii., lib. x. p. 202.
[87-3] Florida was also long supposed to be the site of this wondrous
spring, and it is notorious that both Juan Ponce de Leon and De Soto had
some lurking hope of discovering it in their expeditions thither. I have
examined the myth somewhat at length in _Notes on the Floridian
Peninsula, its Literary History, Indian Tribes, and Antiquities_, pp. 99,
100: Philadelphia, 1859.
[88-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. iii. cap. iii.
[88-2] _Le Livre Sacre des Quiches_, Introd., p. clviii.
[89-1] Memorial de Tecpan Atitlan, in Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, i. p.
167. The derivation of Tulan, or Tula, is extremely uncertain. The Abbe
Brasseur sees in it the _ultima Thule_ of the ancient geographers, which
suits his idea of early American history. Hernando De Soto found a
village of this name on the Mississippi, or near it. But on looking into
Gallatin's vocabularies, _tulla_ turns out to be the Choctaw word for
_stone_, and as De Soto was then in the Choctaw country, the coincidence
is explained at once. Buschmann, who spells it _Tollan_, takes it from
_tolin_, a rush, and translates, _juncetum_, _Ort der Binsen. Ueber die
Aztekischen Orstnamen_,[TN-2] p. 682. Those who have attempted to make
history from these mythological fables have been much puzzled about the
location of this mystic land. Humboldt has placed it on the northwest
coast, Cabrera at Palenque, Clavigero north of Anahuac, etc. etc. Aztlan,
literally, the White Land, is another name of wholly mythical purport,
which it would be equally vain to seek on the terrestrial globe. In the
extract in the text, the word translated God is _Qabavil_, an old word
for the highest god, either from a root meaning to open, to disclose, or
from one of similar form signifying to wonder, to marvel; literally,
therefore, the Revealer, or the Wondrous One (_Vocab. de la Lengua
Quiche_, p. 209: Paris, 1862).
[90-1] Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 80, _Le Livre Sacre_, p. 195.
[90-2] Garcia, _Origen de los Indios_, lib. iv. cap. 4.
[91-1] Compare the German expression _sich orientiren_, to right oneself
by the east, to understand one's surroundings.
[92-1] Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, p. 80.
[92-2] See Jacob Grimm, _Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache_, p. 681
[92-3] De Smet, Oregon Missions, p. 352.
[93-1] Bressani, _Relation Abrege_, p. 93.
[93-2] Venegas, _Hist. of California_, i. p. 91: London, 1759.
[93-3] Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. iii.
[93-4] Alexander von Humboldt has asserted that the Quichuas had other
and very circumstantial terms to express the cardinal points drawn from
the positions of the son (_Ansichten der Natur_, ii. p. 368). But the
distinguished naturalist overlooked the literal meaning of the phrases he
quotes for north and south, _intip chaututa chayananpata_ and _intip
chaupunchau chayananpata_, literally, the sun arriving toward the
midnight, the sun arriving toward the midday. These are evidently
translations of the Spanish _hacia la media noche_, _hacia el medio dia_,
for they could not have originated among a people under or south of the
equatorial line.
[94-1] Catlin, _Letters and Notes_, i., Letter 22; La Hontan, _Memoires_,
ii. p. 151; Gumilla, _Hist. del Orinoco_, p. 159
[96-1] On the worship of the cross in Mexico and Yucatan and its
invariable meaning as representing the gods of rain, consult
Ixtlilxochitl, _Hist. des Chichimeques_, p. 5; Sahagun, _Hist. de la
Nueva Espana_, lib. i. cap. ii.; Garcia, _Or. de los Indios_, lib. iii.
cap. vi. p. 109; Palacios, _Des. de la Prov. de Guatemala_, p. 29;
Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. ix.; Villagutierre
Sotomayor, _Hist. de el Itza y de el Lacandon_, lib. iii. cap. 8; and
many others might be mentioned.
[96-2] Rivero and Tschudi, _Peruvian Antiquities_, p. 162, after J.
Acosta.
[96-3] Loskiel, _Ges. der Miss. der evang. Brueder_, p. 60.
[97-1] Hawkins, _Sketch of the Creek Country_, p. 75. Lapham and Pidgeon
mention that in the State of Wisconsin many low mounds are found in the
form of a cross with the arms directed to the cardinal points. They
contain no remains. Were they not altars built to the Four Winds? In the
mythology of the Dakotas, who inhabited that region, the winds were
always conceived as birds, and for the cross they have a native name
literally signifying "the musquito hawk spread out" (Riggs, _Dict. of the
Dakota_, s. v.). Its Maya name is _vahom che_, the tree erected or set
up, the adjective being drawn from the military language and implying as
a defence or protection, as the warrior lifts his lance or shield (Landa,
_Rel. de las Cosas de Yucatan_, p. 65).
[97-2] Squier, _The Serpent Symbol in America_, p. 98.