The Sacred Number Four
It appears that Great Spirit caused everything in the world to be in fours; for this reason mankind’s activities of all kinds should be governed by the number four out of respect to this sacred number and in agreement with it.
We see that there are four directions: the north, the east, the south, and the west; four divisions of time: the day, the night, the moon, and the year; there are four seasons: the spring, the summer, the autumn, and the winter; there are four parts to everything that grows from the ground: the roots, the stems, the leaves, and the fruits; four kinds of things that breathe: those that crawl, those that fly, those that walk on four legs, and those that walk on two legs; four things above the world: the sun, the moon, the sky, and the stars; four kinds of gods: the great, the associates of the great, the gods below them, and the spirit kind; four periods of human life: infancy, youth, adulthood, and old age; mankind has four fingers on each hand, four toes on each foot, and the thumbs and big toes of each taken together make four.
All these tokens of the works of Great Spirit should cause mankind to order his ceremonies and all activities so far as possible by this sacred number.