Standing Bear reiterates much of Sword's account and adds that the Oglala camp was often divided into four circles, the center of which formed the hocoka. He recalls two songs:

"Wankatanhan heyau welo
Wankatanhan heyau welo
'Mitahocoka topa wanlaka nunwe'
Heyau welo
Hanhewi kin heyau welo
E ya ye yo.

That is what she is saying coming from above
That is what she is saying coming from above
'May you see my four camp circles'
That is what she comes saying
E ya ye yo.

Wankatanhan heyau welo
Wankatanhan heyau welo
'Mitawicoĥan topa wanlaka nunwe'
Heyau welo
Anpewi kin heyau welo
Heyau welo
E ye ye yo.

That is what he is saying coming from above
That is what he is saying coming from above
'May you see my four deeds'
That is what he comes saying
That is what he comes saying
E ye ye yo."

According to Standing Bear, these songs were received by sacred men and sung over the sick. The four deeds in the second song refer to the creation of the four winds and signify that the power ot the sun reaches to the four corners of the earth.

Ideally, ceremonies took place over a four-day period or over a period of time divided into four-day segments. According to Sword, the White Buffalo Calf Woman stayed woth the people for four days, during which time she gave them the seven great ceremonies. In handling ritual objects, she feigned at them three times before picking up on the fourth, a practice still observed today among the Oglalas, particularly in handling a sacred pipe.

As noted in the previous section, Wakantanka has sixteen aspects (four times four - tobtob). The ideal number of willow saplings needed to construct a sweat lodge was sixteen (four for each direction). The four divisions of time may be further divided into four segments:

A camp circle of seven constituents, as noted above, is an ideal Sioux type. According to Black Elk, the White Buffalo Calf Woman brought seven sacred ceremonies to the Sioux. As will be described under rituals, invoking all the supernaturals of the universe requires praying, singing, and/or smoking to seven directions: west, north, east, south, above, below, and the messenger. Prayer offerings, consisting of seven small bundles of tobacco, are often left in trees and on hillsides.

The product of four and seven is also regarded as sacred. There are seven sun dance songs, each of which is sung four times. As to the importance of four times seven, Black Elk states:

"In setting up the sun dance lodge, we are really making the universe in a likeness; for, you see, each of the posts around the lodge represents some particular object of creation, and the one tree at the center, upon which the twenty-eight poles rest, is Wakantanka, who is the center of everything....And I should tell you why it is that we use twenty-eight poles. I have already explained why the numbers four and seven are sacred; then if you add four sevens you get twenty-eight. Also the moon lives twenty-eight days, and this is our month; each of these days of the month represents something sacred to us: two of the days represent Wakantanka; two are for Mother Earth; four are for the four winds; one is for the Spotted Eagle; one for the sun; and one for the moon; one is for the Morning Star; and four for the four ages; seven are for our seven great rites; one is for the buffalo; one for the fire; one for the water; one for the rock; and finally, one is for the two-legged people. If you add all these days up you will see that they come to twenty-eight. You should also know that the buffalo has twenty-eight ribs, and that in our war bonnets we usually use twenty-eight feathers."

In the Lakota tradition all animate beings are born and die. In the process they pass through what might be called by analogy four states of individuation. Each individual comes into a being as the result of (1) having a potentiality for being, (2) transforming this potentiality through birth into an essence that is independent of the body, (3) providing continuous evidence that this essence exists, and (4) finally providing evidence that the essence independent of the corporeal existence continues after death, therefore freeing its potentiality to inhere in another (potential) organism to begin the process all over, ad infinitum, in what we understand in English to be a system of reincarnation. When old Lakota medicine men spoke of these states, they named them (1)šicun, (2)tun, (3)ni, and (4) nagi, respectively. These four states have been described as constituting a belief in four souls, or at least, four aspects of one soul. If we regard these four states as part of a process, parts that are named and stand as separate but related categories, then the Lakota concept of soul is much easier to understand. The terms are tied together as parts of a descriptive process that demark stages in the coming-into-being-and-dying process of each individual. One usually struggles to interpret the parts of the whole independently: šicun is 'potentiality'; tun is 'giving birth'; ni means 'life' or 'breath'; and nagi means 'ghost'. These interpretations are only partly convincing when we think of them as static concepts, but when we look at their interrelationships and dynamic quality, the parts blend neatly into an interpretation which emphasizes the whole life process as one in which immortality is achieved through reincarnation.

But one need not turn only to metaphysical concepts to see how the number four implies the unfolding, the development, the evolution of important events. For example, take a more visible form of ritual, dance. In Lakota ritual a number of choreographic patterns are marked by the number four. In the traditional ceĥohomni wacipi, 'dance around the kettle, or Kettle Dance', the dancers, after raising their hands in salutation to the kettle filled with dog meat, dance around the kettle four times. After completing this movement, they dance in place while several of them, armed with forked sticks, charge the kettle. Three times they charge the kettle, the fourth time stabbing the choice morsels of meat with their spears.

In the wiwanyang wacipi, 'gaze at the sun, or Sun Dance', we find countless references to the number four as an organizing principle for a longer and more complex ritual. When the sacred pole has been found, four virgins each strike the pole four times with axes before it is felled. On the journey back to the Sun Dance camp, the people carrying the pole stop four times to rest. When the pole is to be erected, those men in charge do so by resting three times as they raise the pole, the fourth time heaving the pole into its proper position.

During the actual performance of the Sun Dance, the leader directs all of the dancers to face each of the four directions during the course of the daily ordeal. During one part of the dance, they dance up to the pole four times and finally grasp it to pray. At each rest period, a man or woman, or both, are selected to take a pipe and offer it to the head singer. If the singer accepts the pipe, it means that they will stop singing, and the dancers may rest in the shade. There is a peculiar way in which the dancers present the pipe to the head singer. The dancers dance up to the head singer holding their pipes in both hands in front of their chests. Three times they dance forward and present the pipe to the head singer who feigns at the pipe but refuses to accept it. At this point the dancers dance backward, then forward again to present the pipe. On this, the fourth time, it is accepted and the singers immediately stop singing, as soon as the head singer has taken the pipe from the dancers. The dancers then file off the dance ground to rest.

The number of ceremonies and rituals we can use to analyze the significance of the sacred numbers is unending, and suggests a new sense of meaning. All of these variations tell us that numbers are at once a statement about time and space, about synchrony and diachrony, about states of movement and motionlessness. Numbers have the capacity to analyze, and at the same time synthesize, and for this reason serve as one of the greatest of symbolic vehicles: they are singularly powerful messages because of their multidimensionality. They are at once paradigm and syntagm, metaphor and metonymn.

In Lakota cosmology as well as ritual, we find exhaustive references to the number four in both static and dynamic representations. The Four Winds or directions are frequently depicted in the static form of a cross or other design marked by four points, such as those found in quill and beadwork designs. The symbolic design is a synchronic statement about the relationship between the four constituent parts which it represents. But the parts themselves, the personalities or attributes that make up the Four Winds, are always seen as being related diachronically. For example, the Four Directions are equated with the four seasons, and as such are referred to in a sequential order beginnning with the West Wind, moving clockwise to the North, East, and South. Adherence to this ritual formula is attributed to the cosmology in which the Four Directions are brothers, the son of Tate, the wind, and Ite, Face, born in the following order: North, West, East, and South. Because of various circumstances, the birth order is changed so that the North and West exchange positions thus producing the proper directional sequence. Thus the symbol of the four directions - the four-pointed star or cross - static as it may be, conjures up the image of movement, a diachronous statement about the birth of the Four Winds. Also, there is an equation between the cardinal directions, or more accurately, quarters of the universe, and the four seasons which appear in real life in the same order that the four brothers are born in the myths. West equals Fall; North equals Winter; East equals Spring; and South equals Summer. Each direction then has a temporal as well as spatial dimension; the relationships are always constant, but as a whole they are in continuous and predictable paths of movement.

Looking at other symbols of the Four Winds, we can see that new modes of analysis can help unlock potential meaning. For example, in the past we would have been likely on "logical" grounds to see the members of the Four Winds, the West, North, East, and South as constituting, in semiotic terms, a paradigm. At the same time the relationships between the directions, and say colors, animals, and birds that symbolize each of the respective directions were syntagmatically related. A syntagmatic chain hypothetically would be produced by the association of, say, West Wind representing the paradigm "direction" ; Fall representing the paradigm "season"; Black representing the paradigm "color" associated with the direction; Buffalo representing the "animal" symbolizing the direction, and so on. The entire series may be schematized in the following way:

The above schema may be considered the Western inclination to arrange topically and paradigmatically, that is , into things that go together. It produces a group of static categories. However, from the Lakota point of view, the schema makes more sense if we view it it the following way:

From this perspective, we see that all members of paradigm 1 are interchangeable; that is, in the language of semiotics, they are metaphorically related, while the relationships expressed between paradigmatic sets express metonymical relationships. the point is that in the first schema there is a tendency to see each paradigmatic set as static while in the second schema there is a sense of movement. Both schemata, of course, are two aspects of a singular analytical perspective, one based on the notion of a two-dimensional model rather than a single one. One model produces a static or synchronic representation of the number four, the second produces a dynamic or diachronic representation.

The second schema also represents what might be a mechanism for breaking the mythical code. Any reference to a singular member of a paradigmatic set is implicitly a reference to all other members of the set (by definition) as well as a reference to the relationship between all four paradigmatic sets. Hence when a medicine man sings that he is calling a "red stone friend" he is really making a reference to a totality whose aid may be sought by addressing only one of its parts. "Red stone" then is really a referential marker that signifies the North, Winter, Buffalo, etc. Any reference to one member of the set is a reference to all of them. Therefore, a prayer or song that in theory addresses specifically the swallow, a red stone, a whitetail deer, and summer has in fact made a general reference to the four directions.

We should not be so dazzled by analysis that we overlook the quality of fulfillment in sacred numbers, that in fact a recitation of the numerical components of the series leads somewhere. For example, in the creation story we find metaphorical references to personified gods who through their actions result in the creation of a viable universe out of a static matrix. Investing static objects with movement ultimately causes the creation of the universe as the Lakota now see it. During the process, a four-part plan unfolds in which (1) days and nights are distinguished, (2) the month is established, (3) the year and the seasons (that is, space) are established, leading up to the present "time" period, the fourth generation, which is (4) the present time.

Another symbol underscores the sense of fulfillment inherent in the number four, even though the symbol itself is a highly negative one, in the form of an apocalyptic story. In it the old Lakota envision the state of affairs of the current universe as one symbolized by a buffalo literally on its last legs. In the story, the buffalo starts out with four legs and thick hair. Over time, the buffalo begins to lose its hair and ultimately three of its legs. When the buffalo is totally bald, and has lost its fourth leg, the world as we know it will come to an end. There is some sense of optimism though because the demise of the buffalo will lead to a spiritual reincarnation, and the universe will start all over again, the next time being, it is hoped, more favorable for the Lakota than the last has been.

But it is not only in myth and ritual that we see symbolic fulfillment expressed in the number four. Four is seen as a means of classifying empirical reality too. Not only does the one-legged buffalo die, but the four seasons come and go sequentially unchanged. It is also believed that the stages of one's life develop in a quadripartite way, through childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age. The stages on one's life also can be integrated into the total paradigmatic and syntagmatic schema so that, metaphorically speaking, upon birth one "leaves" the South, in this reincarnative system, to "arrive" in the West and pursue one's own course of living in a way that corresponds with the movement of the four seasons. Thus a lifetime is a microcosmic symbol of the annual rounds, themselves symbolic of the way the universe came into being. It makes sense in the language of the Lakota to say of a person who has just died that itokagata iyaye, 'he has gone south'.

The number four also should be seen as a means of classifying contemporary ideas relevant to Lakota culture, as will as to old traditions. This is perhaps proof that it is the system of classification that is important rather than the things that are classified, that is, it is the relationships between persons, places, and things that are deemed important rather than the persons, places, and things, themselves.

As one example of the viability of the system, we need only look at certain relationships that have been made between the directional color system, and the concept of "race." At one time, the precise colors selected to represent important directions or other religious concepts varied greatly between medicine men. There are a number of published accounts which are often explained to be contradictions in what is naively viewed as a systematic color-ordering system. But it was only during the early 1970's that the color-directional system was codified into the present correspondencies of West-Black, North-Red, East-Yellow, and South-White. Currently, younger Lakota see a relationship between these colors, and a rather arbitrary classification of human "races" based on old-fashioned scientific and folk notions of "great races of mankind," a scientific position no longer acceptable. In this new use of the sacred colors, Black is equated with Black people, Red with Indians, White with Europeans, and Yellow with undifferentiated Orientals. Now whether scientifically acceptable, which it is not, or even acceptable to traditional religion, which old Lakota claim it is not, the numerical system clearly takes precedence over the objects which it seeks to classify and therefore to explain. The system is simply an elegant way of explicating a very complex system of relationships. It is conjectural whether all things in nature may be "inherently" divided into components of four. But from the Lakota viewpoint, all things in culture may be classified by their "natural" proclivity to confine, constrain, even squeeze things that are meaningful to them into units of four.

In a culture where even the most significant concepts of the universe are governed by forces like spirits that enjoy a good laugh, what is the consequence of playing what must seem to people outside Lakota culture as a frivolous game of numbers? The answer to outsiders must be that it is perhaps a persisting, habitual means of explaining the universe and adding a sense of cogency and predictability to an otherwise unknowable environment. It is a tradition no less significant than others based on other numerals. For the western analyst, the system of classification precedes the means of classification. For the Lakota, they are one and the same.