Native American Cosmology

The significance of the four directions and the duality of worlds is essential in understanding Native American cosmology as they are the two most unifying themes in the cosmology of the Americas. These were general themes that guided a tribe’s culture, intellectual and political situations, and their way of life. With this in mind, cosmology becomes a description of the different personalities and ideologies of each of individual tribes, while also highlighting and showcasing the intricate relationship and similarities among them. Because of these parallels, one can see how the widespread themes of having four significant directions and believing in the duality of worlds influenced the Native American theological culture throughout the Americas

in many similar ways, despite the separation of these tribes by physical and chronological barriers.
Much of the cosmologies based in Mesoamerica were tied to predictive astronomy, a type of astronomy in which more emphasis was placed in dates and locations rather than on the motions of the heavens. Because of this, the theme of four directions bearing extreme significance is constantly seen in many religious aspects of Native American society. Since it is so pervasive in many cultures, it is important to see how different interpretations of the four directions can still tie together. This importance is proven by McCluskey who claims that “the four-directionality of space seems to be the oldest and most widespread theme shared among Native American cosmologies” (10). The four directions impacted everything in Native American life from how many dance plazas were located in each house to religious coming-of-age rituals. In fact, knowing all this information was an essential part to functioning in society, a stark contrast to today’s society in which one can know nothing about the universe and get away with it. On account of this significance, it is important to understand how the four directions tie together many theological cultures of the Mesoamericans in order to demonstrate the similarities they all exhibit.
The first major similarity with the four directions is that each direction usually had a religious marker located at each direction which served a higher purpose within the tribe than just a geographical location.

For example, the San Juan Tewa Indians believed that there were four sacred mountains located at each of the cardinal directions. These mountains each had a lake or body of water at the peaks which connected the Earth to the celestial world. Along with the directions being pathways to the celestial world, each direction also had a shrine outside every pueblo in the tribe to honor and pay homage to the sun as it traveled along its path on the horizon. However, the San Juan Tewa was not the only tribe to believe that the mountains were important religious locations. The concept of sacred mountains at the four cardinal directions linking the heavens with the underworld is actually found in most complex cosmologies of the high cultures of both North and South America and shows how the four directions played an important religious role in many native cultures. For example, the Hopi Indians also believed that each of the directions had an important connection to the gods. However, their directions were based on where the sun rose and set during the summer and winter solstices rather than the true cardinal directions. They believed that the four mountains located at each inter-cardinal direction—Kishyuba in northwest, Nuvatikyauobi in the southwest, Wenima in the

southeast, and Nuvatikyauobia in the northeast—were the sun’s houses as it traveled across the sky. Because of this, the Hopi would send a young man with prayer sticks during winter solstices and to collect flowers during summer solstices to each respective house in order to ask the sun to either hurry up or slow down on its path. In both these examples, mountains at each of the four directions link the heavens with the actual world and give the tribes a way to communicate with the gods.
Along with the four directions representing religious markers, the four directions also play a role in many Native American religious origin stories. One example is Lenni Lenape Indians of Delaware who use the four directions to explain the creation of land along with the creation and motion of the moon and sun. Their book, the Walum Olum, states that “before the cosmos…the earth is depicted by a rectangle divided diagonally into quarters….When land was created, the symbol of the four directions reappears; the sun, moon, and stars are depicted rising in the east, with the moon moving back and forth to either side of the sun” (McCluskey 11). They explained the creation of everything with relation to the four directions and how everything developed into the four parts we see and live on today. Similarly, the Aztec, who lived hundreds of miles away, also believed that their creation was centered around the number four. Their mythological tale states that there have already been four suns in existence and that each one ended with the wiping out of the human race due to a natural disaster or calamity and that this wiping out resulted in the creation of a new sun and world. The myth also states that the present order of the universe was established when the sun found its proper rising place and direction during the fifth sun cycle, the cycle the universe is currently in. This direction was determined by the four Aztec gods who decided that the sun would rise in the east and set in the west. These examples show that even though these Native American tribes did not co-exist, they were still tied together through their dependence on the four direction as an important aspect in creation, a concept prevalent in many other Native American creation myths as well.
Lastly, there were many other miscellaneous theological applications of the four directions that appear throughout Native American cosmology. For example, in many cultures each direction had a specific color to symbolize and/or represent a god. For example, in the Mayan culture, the four rain gods representing the four directions, also known as Chacs, were each associated with different colors with “[the] black chac representing the summer solstice sunset, yellow chac representing the winter solstice sunset, green chac representing the winter solstice sunrise, and the white chac representing the summer solstice sunrise” (McCluskey 19). In addition to assigning a color to the ritualistic, inter-cardinal directions of their world, the Mayans—along with other tribes such as the Cherokee, Navajo, and Hopi—also assigned symbolic colors to their cardinal directions in order to represent the heavens, life, and death. Lastly, many Native Americans also believed in the concept of a medicine wheel to help maintain health and heal as “[i]t embodies the Four Directions, as well as Father Sky, Mother Earth, and Spirit Tree—all of which symbolize dimensions of health and the cycles of life” (Medicine Ways: Traditional Healers and Healing). The movement of the Medicine Wheel in Native American life is circular and moves “sun-wise,” a counterclockwise motion of the sun, through the four directions, which is said to channel the spirits and help heal the soul. Different tribes interpret the wheel differently and believe that the four directions can be represented in a variety of different ways. The ways include: different colors, stages of life, seasons, animals, and even spiritual aspects of life.
Along with the significance of the number four, the theme of the duality of the worlds is also a common theological theme throughout many Native American cultures.

The duality of world in Native American cosmology represents the sun’s annual journey along the horizon as a progression between different worlds, the worlds above and below. However, in addition to the sun, many tribes believed that only supernatural beings or powerful humans could travel between worlds and that these powerful beings had a connection with the deities. Furthermore, most tribes, other than the Hobi, believed in the hierarchy of the cosmos and the division of the above and below levels. For example, the Aztecs believed in thirteen layers in the above and nine layers in the below whereas the Cuna Indians of Panama and Kogi Indians of Columbia held the view that there were four levels above and four levels below. In many of these beliefs, the below, or the underworld, was the region of the dead where the sun traveled through at night while the upper levels represented the home of the gods and other supreme beings. This can be seen in the Mayans who, according to McCluskey in Cosmology, believed that there were three above different layers, each of which housed important theological figures. The lowest layer was also the invisible layer whereas the second layer housed the moon, Virgin Mary, minor constellations and the highest layer housed the sun, Christ, Saint Jerome, greater constellations. This

demonstrates that many tribes across the continents all believed in the duality of worlds and the segregation of these worlds based on a hierarchy of importance, no matter where or when they were around.
These unifying themes of the significance of the number four and the duality of the worlds in Native American culture seem to transcend different locations and time periods to show that many tribes have a similar theological culture. The tribes use these themes to explain rituals in their daily lives and phenomena in the world around them. The elaboration of these themes into complex, hierarchical cosmologies provided a framework for generations to come and showed future descendants just how similar and interconnected everything was back then.