Number Seven, the fundamental figure among all other figures in every national religious system, from Cosmogony down to man, must have its _raison d’être_. It is found among the ancient Americans, as prominently as among the archaic Âryans and Egyptians. The question will be fully dealt with in the second Part of this Volume; meanwhile a few facts may be given here. Says the author of the _Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and the Quiches, 11,500 years ago_:(61) Seven seems to have been the sacred number _par excellence_ among all civilized nations of antiquity. Why? This query has never been satisfactorily answered. Each separate people has given a different explanation, according to the peculiar tenets of their [exoteric] religion. That it was the number of numbers for those initiated to the sacred mysteries there can be no doubt. Pythagoras ... calls it the “Vehicle of life,” containing body and soul, since it is formed of a quaternary, that is: _Wisdom and Intellect_; and a Trinity, or _action_ and _matter_. The Emperor Julian, in _Matrem_ and in _Oratio_,(62) expresses himself thus: “Were I to touch upon the initiation into our secret mysteries, which the Chaldees bacchized respecting the _seven‐rayed_ god, lighting up the soul through him, I should say things unknown to the rabble, very unknown, but well known to the blessed Theurgists.”(63) And who that is acquainted with the _Purânas_, the _Book of the Dead_, the _Zendavesta_, the Assyrian Tiles, and finally the _Bible_, and has observed the constant occurrence of the number seven in these records of people from the remotest times upwards unconnected and so far apart, can regard as a coincidence the following fact, given by the same explorer of ancient Mysteries? Speaking of the prevalence of seven as a mystic number, among the inhabitants of the “Western Continent” of America, he adds that it is not less remarkable. For: It frequently occurs in the _Popul‐Vuh_. We find it besides in the _seven families_ said by Sahagun and Clavigero to have accompanied the mystical personage named _Votan_, the reputed founder of the great city of Nachan, identified by some with Palenque. In the _seven caves_(64) from which the ancestors of the Nahualts are reported to have emerged. In the _seven cities_ of Cibola, described by Coronado and Niza.... In the _seven Antilles_; in the _seven heroes_ who, we are told, escaped the Deluge.