division of the Muyscas of Bogota was traced back to four chieftains
created by their hero god Nemqueteba (A. von Humboldt, _Vues des
Cordilleres_, p. 246). The Nahuas of Mexico much more frequently spoke of
themselves as descendants of four or eight original families than of
seven (Humboldt, _ibid._, p. 317, and others in Waitz, _Anthropologie_,
iv. pp. 36, 37). The Sacs or Sauks of the Upper Mississippi supposed that
two men and two women were first created, and from these four sprang all
men (Morse, _Rep. on Ind. Affairs_, App. p. 138). The Ottoes, Pawnees,
"and other Indians," had a tradition that from eight ancestors all
nations and races were descended (Id., p. 249). This duplication of the
number probably arose from assigning the first four men four women as
wives. The division into clans or totems which prevails in most northern
tribes rests theoretically on descent from different ancestors. The
Shawnees and Natchez were divided into four such clans, the Choctaws,
Navajos, and Iroquois into eight, thus proving that in those tribes also
the myth I have been discussing was recognized.

[85-1] Mandans in Catlin, _Letts. and Notes_, i. p. 181.

[85-2] The Mayas, Cogolludo, _Hist. de Yucathan_, lib. iv. cap. 8.

[85-3] The Navajos, Schoolcraft, _Ind. Tribes_, iv. p. 89.

[85-4] The Quiches, Ximenes, _Or. de los Indios_, p. 79.

[85-5] The Iroquois, Mueller, _Amer. Urreligionen_, p. 109.

[85-6] For these myths see Sepp, _Das Heidenthum und dessen Bedeutung fuer
das Christenthum_, i. p. 111 sqq. The interpretation is of course my own.

[87-1] Peter Martyr, _De Reb. Ocean._, Dec. iii., lib. ix. p. 195; Colon,
1574.

[87-2] Ibid., Dec. iii., lib. x. p. 202.

[87-3] Florida was also long supposed to be the site of this wondrous
spring, and it is notorious that both Juan Ponce de Leon and De Soto had
some lurking hope of discovering it in their expeditions thither. I have
examined the myth somewhat at length in _Notes on the Floridian
Peninsula, its Literary History, Indian Tribes, and Antiquities_, pp. 99,
100: Philadelphia, 1859.

[88-1] Sahagun, _Hist. de la Nueva Espana_, lib. iii. cap. iii.

[88-2] _Le Livre Sacre des Quiches_, Introd., p. clviii.

[89-1] Memorial de Tecpan Atitlan, in Brasseur, _Hist. du Mexique_, i. p.
167. The derivation of Tulan, or Tula, is extremely uncertain. The Abbe
Brasseur sees in it the _ultima Thule_ of the ancient geographers, which
suits his idea of early American history.