The hero-god is usually connected with tales of a creation and a flood, or other destruction of the world. These cosmogonical and cataclysmal myths belong together, and arise from the same impulse to explain cosmic phenomena by the analogy with ordinary changes of the seasons and the day. In constant connection with them, and also with the rites of religion and medicine, with the social institutions and the calendar, with the plans of edifices and the arrangement of gens and phratries, in fact, with all the apparatus of life, was a respect for the _sacred number_. It is strange how constantly this presents itself throughout American life, and is, in fact, the key to many of its forms. The sacred number is Four, and its origin is from the four cardinal points. These were the guides to the native in his wanderings, and, as identified with the winds, were the deities who brought about the change of the seasons and the phenomena of the weather. They were represented by the symbols of the cross, whose four arms we see portrayed on the altar tablet of Palenque, on the robes of the Mexican priests, in the hieroglyphs of the Algonkins, and in countless other connections. A rich symbolism rapidly developed in all the sedentary tribes, and very much along the same lines. The bird, the serpent, the sacred stone, the tree of life, water as a purifier, the perpetual fire, all these are members of a religious symbolism, clear signs of which recur in all segments of the continent. The chants and dances, the ritual of the medicine men, the functions of esoteric orders and secret societies, present a resemblance greater than that which can be explained by a mere similarity in the stage of culture. I explain it by the ethnic and psychical unity of the race, and its perpetual freedom from any foreign influence. The mortuary rites indicated a belief in the continued existence of the individual after apparent death. These were by incineration, by inhumation, by exposure, or by mummification. Articles were placed with the deceased for use in his future state, and the ceremonies of mourning were frequently severe and protracted. A sacredness was generally attached to the bones and therefore these were carefully preserved. In accordance with a superstition widely felt in the Old World, they were supposed to harbor some share of the departed spirit. The conception of the after life is wholly material. The Zapotec, for instance, believes that he will return to his familiar haunts after a few hundred years, and buries all the money he makes that he may then live at his ease. Von Gagern estimates the amount of silver thus secreted and lost within the last century at a hundred million dollars.[61]