[64-2] Both these legends will be analyzed in a subsequent chapter, and an attempt made not only to restore them their primitive form, but to explain their meaning. [65-1] Compare the translation and remarks of Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios de Guat._, p. 76, with those of Brasseur, _Le Livre Sacré des Quichés_, p. 189. CHAPTER III. 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]