[140] I have presented this subject with greater detail in an article “On the Origin of Sacred Numbers” in the _American Anthropologist_, April, 1894. The contrast of symbolism of the three and the four is familiar to students. Such a popular text-book as Keil’s _Manual of Biblical Archæology_ states that four was the predominating number in the temples, altars, and rites of the ancient world, it being, “according to an idea common to all antiquity, the symbol of the cosmos”; while the three was “the mark of the Divine Being in His various manifestations” (pp. 127, 128).
[141] Westcott, _Symbolism of Numbers_, p. 7. I have given several examples of triple or triune deities in America in _Myths of the New World_, pp. 84, 187, 188. From other fields I may note the triad Kane, Ku, and Lono of Hawaii (Fornander, _Polynesian Race_, vol. i., p. 61); that on the Marquesas objectively represented by three sticks tied together (Dr. Tautain, in _L’Anthropologie_, tom. vii., p. 544); the triad of Tangaloa, Creator, Maui, Sustainer, and Tiki, Revealer, elsewhere in Polynesia (Hale, _Ethnog. and Philol._, p. 24).
[142] Numerous examples are collected in L. L. Conant, _The Number Concept_, chap. ii.
[143] In the Quiche and Tzental dialects.
[144] From the verb _tumpa_, to forge. Ling Roth, _Natives of Sarawak_, vol. i., p. 165.
[145] The Tinné of British America have the word _Nayéweri_, he who creates by thought (Petitot, _Les Dené Dindjie_, p. 63); the Algonquian Kitché Manito created the world “by an act of his will” (Schoolcraft, _Oneóta_, p. 342). For the Zuñians, see Cushing, _Zuñi Creation Myths_, p. 379; for the Polynesians, Hale, _Ethnography of the U. S. Exploring Expedition_, p. 399, and Fornander, _The Polynesian Race_, vol. i., p. 62.
There is no distinction between these opinions and that of the Christian church, so beautifully expressed by St. Ephrem the Syrian: “At the nod of His will, noiseless and gentle, out of nothing He created all.” (_Select Works_, Translated by Rev. J. B. Morris, p. 185.)
[146] Fornander, _The Polynesian Race_, vol. i., p. 67; _Rel. de la Nouv. France_, 1634, p. 13.
[147] In _Myths of the New World_, ch. vii. (first ed., 1868). Numerous writers, Klee, Andree, Lucas, etc., have treated the deluge myth with fulness. It is found even among the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands (Man, _u. s._) and is quite common throughout Polynesia (Fornander, _u. s._, vol. i., pp. 88, _sq._). Various Australian tribes record it in detail, Smyth, _The Aborigines of Victoria_, vol. i., p. 430.