The east and west were usually called from the rising and setting of the sun as in our words orient and occident, but occasionally from traditional notions.

The Mayas named the west the greater, the east the lesser debarkation; believing that while their culture hero Zamna came from the east with a few attendants, the mass of the population arrived from the opposite direction.[93-3] The Aztecs spoke of the east as "the direction of Tlalocan," the terrestrial paradise.

But for north and south there were no such natural appellations, and consequently the greatest diversity is exhibited in the plans adopted to express them.
The north in the Caddo tongue is "the place of cold," in Dakota "the situation of the pines," in Creek "the abode of the (north) star," in Algonkin "the home of the soul," in Aztec "the direction of Mictla" the realm of death, in Quiche and Quichua, "to the right hand;"[93-4] while for the south we find such terms as in Dakota "the downward direction," in Algonkin "the place of warmth," in Quiche "to the left hand," while among the Eskimos, who look in this direction for the sun, its name implies "before one," just as does the Hebrew word _kedem_, which, however, this more southern tribe applied to the east.
We can trace the sacredness of the number four in other curious and unlooked-for developments.

Multiplied into the number of the fingers--the arithmetic of every child and ignorant man--or by adding together the first four members of its arithmetical series (4 + 8 + 12 + 16), it gives the number forty.

This was taken as a limit to the sacred dances of some Indian tribes, and by others as the highest number of chants to be employed in exorcising diseases.