MCGEE] THE SENARY-SEPTENARY SYSTEM 835 
that the cardinal points are never conceived apart from the ego in the 
ceuter: that the subjectively prepotent part of the swastika is the inter- 
section or common origin of the arms; that the four colors of bright- 
ening sunrise and boreal cold and blushing sunset and zephyr-borne 
warmth must have a complementary all-color in the middle; that the 
four winds are balanced against some mythic storm king (able to par- 
alyze their powers in response to suitable sacrament) in or near the 
middle of the world; that the sky falls off in all directions from above 
the central home of the real men; that the four termini of Papago 
time relate to the end of the period conceived always with respect 
to the beginning; that the four worlds of widespread Amerindian 
mythology comprise two above and two below the fate-shadowed one 
on which the shamans have their half-apperceived existence; that the 
four phratries or societies are arranged about the real tribal center; 
and that in all cases the exoterically mystical number carries an esoteric 
complement in the form of a simple unity reflecting the egoistic per- 
sonality or subjectivity of the thinker. It is easier to represent the 
quatern concept graphically than verbally—indeed it has been repre- 
sented graphically by unnumbered thousands of primitive thinkers in 
the cruciform symbols dotting the whole of human history and dif- 
fused in nearly every human province, or in the form of the equally 
widespread but less conspicuous quincunx. 
The exoterically quatern and esoterically quincuncial concept appears 
to mark a fairly definite phase of human development; a somewhat 
higher stage is marked by the use of six as a mystical or sacred num- 
ber. In this stage the mythology remains a Cult of the Quarters, 
though the cardinal points are augmented by the addition of zenith and 
nadir, while a third upperworld and a third underworld may be added 
to the tribal cosmology. The ramifications of the concept are still 
more extended than those of the quatern idea, and lead to even more 
patent incongruities—particularly when the attempt is made to graph- 
ically depict the essentially tridimensional concept on a plane. Now 
the senary concept, like its simpler analogue, is always incomplete in 
itself: the six cardinal points must be reckoned from a common 
center, the three underworlds and the three upperworlds are reckoned 
from the middle world of actuality, and the six colors (for example, 
of corn, as among the Zuii, according to Cushing and others) are habit- 
ually supplemented by a central all-color; so that, in this case, as in 
that of the quasi-quaternary system, the exoterically perfect number 
is esoterically perfected through the unity of subjective personality, 
i. e., the ever-present ego.’ It is significant that the six-cult is much 


1 The perfecting of the mystical numbers four and six by the addition of unity has been recognized 
by many investigators, notably by Powell (On Regimentation, in the Fifteenth Annual Report of the 
Bureau of Ethnology, 1893-94, 1897, p. cxvii and elsewhere), Morris (Relation of the Pentagonal Dodeca- 
hedron . . . toShamanism: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. Xxxv1, 1897, 
pp. 179-183), and Cushing (ibid., p. 185 and elsewhere). 
