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.
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