I am currently reading a trilogy by Alfred and Krystyna Szklarski. It is an interesting take, which merges an adventure book with eight years’ (or more) worth of anthropological research on Indians. While written for younger readers, the series offers surprisingly rich insight into the culture, beliefs, and traditions of various Native American tribes — particularly those of the Great Plains. One theme that stood out to me is the belief that a person possesses not one, but four distinct souls.

This idea is deeply rooted in the spiritual worldview of several Plains tribes, such as the Lakota. For these communities, a human being is not simply a body animated by a single spirit. Instead, the self is a complex union of spiritual forces, each with its own function and journey after death. Understanding this concept requires looking at how these societies viewed life as a balance between the material and the spiritual, the individual and the universe.

The number four holds sacred significance in Plains cosmology. It represents the four cardinal directions, the four seasons, and the four stages of life — symbols of completeness and balance. The belief in four souls mirrors this worldview. Each soul aspect not only reflects a part of human nature but also corresponds to a direction, force, or cosmic principle. It’s a spiritual geometry that maps the human experience onto the broader rhythms of the earth and sky.

Among the Lakota, the four souls are often described as follows: the nagi, or spirit, which carries the personality and may linger near the physical world; the niyan, or breath, which animates the body and returns to the Creator; the sican, or spiritual essence, tied to one’s morality and inner purity; and taku skan skan, a kind of universal movement or awareness, representing the soul’s connection to cosmic motion. After death, these soul parts follow different paths, some returning to the spirit world, others remaining to fulfill roles as guides or echoes in the lives of the living.

Anthropological fieldwork conducted in the early 20th century by scholars like James R. Walker, a physician who lived among the Lakota and recorded their spiritual practices, offers invaluable insight into these beliefs. In his work Lakota Belief and Ritual, Walker details how Lakota holy men described the soul as being composed of distinct spiritual elements, each tied to natural forces and sacred directions. His interviews with Lakota elders revealed that these elements not only guided a person’s moral and emotional life but also shaped ceremonial practices such as vision quests and funeral rites. Walker’s meticulous documentation is still cited today as one of the most authentic records of Lakota spirituality prior to the heavy Christianization of the region.

Further ethnographic studies by Frances Densmore, who worked extensively with Native American tribes for the Smithsonian Institution, also reinforce this understanding. Her recordings and observations of Plains songs and rituals point to a rich spiritual tapestry in which the journey of the soul was central to tribal identity and cohesion. In many tribes, ceremonial rites such as the Sun Dance and death vigils were structured around preparing the four aspects of the soul for their respective transformations.

Early European explorers and missionaries, such as Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, who traveled extensively among the Plains tribes in the mid-1800s, also documented the complexity of Indigenous spiritual beliefs. In his journals and letters, De Smet often expressed both fascination and confusion at the depth of Native cosmologies. He noted that many tribes held elaborate beliefs about the soul, including the idea that the human spirit was not singular but composed of multiple parts that journeyed differently after death. While filtered through a Christian lens, his accounts acknowledged the Plains peoples’ reverence for sacred directions, their sophisticated funeral customs, and their strong sense of moral order—all linked to the belief in multiple souls and a cyclical, sacred universe.

Interestingly, while the concept of four souls may seem mystical through a modern lens, anthropologists and psychologists have long recognized the value of such models in understanding identity and consciousness. Carl Jung, for instance, spoke of the human psyche as a composition of multiple parts — the ego, the shadow, the anima/animus, and the Self — each with distinct functions and influences. This psychological framework, while born in Western thought, echoes the Plains tribes’ belief in a multifaceted spirit, suggesting a universal human inclination to explain inner complexity through layered models of the self.

Modern neuroscience also lends indirect support to these traditional perspectives. While science does not speak of “souls,” studies show that human consciousness, moral judgment, breath regulation, and personal identity are governed by different parts of the brain and nervous system. The brainstem manages breath and life functions (niyan), the prefrontal cortex governs moral reasoning (sican), and the limbic system plays a central role in emotion and personal memory (nagi). Though the Lakota and other Plains peoples did not use scientific language, their intuitive, spiritual model of the human being captured layers of existence that modern science is only beginning to understand in full.

---

Perhaps one of the most profound insights we can draw from the belief in four souls is a reimagining of what we truly are. Rather than seeing ourselves as a single, indivisible entity, the Plains Indians offer a view of the self as a congregation of forces — breath, spirit, essence, and awareness (author: or more?) — each with its own voice, its own path, and its own ties to the greater universe. This layered understanding invites us to be more compassionate toward our inner contradictions, to listen more closely to the different aspects of ourselves that pull in various directions.

If we embraced this way of thinking, our worldview might shift in remarkable ways. We might see emotions not as fleeting disturbances but as the language of one of our inner souls; we might regard dreams and visions as conversations between these selves. The world around us — with its winds, seasons, and shifting light — could become a mirror, not just of our biology but of our spiritual composition. In acknowledging that we are more than one, we may finally begin to see others — and the earth itself — as complex, sacred, and alive in ways we’ve long forgotten.

And if we were to stretch this concept further — that we are not merely four souls, but perhaps entire constellations of consciousness, each emotion, impulse, memory, and dream its own celestial body — then our current models of the mind begin to feel like overly simple maps of an unexplored cosmos. What if mental health isn’t about “fixing” one broken part, but about listening to the symphony of inner voices, tending to each with respect, as one might navigate a night sky of shifting stars? Science often seeks precision and clarity, but perhaps healing requires humility — an acceptance that the mind is not a machine to be debugged, but a galactic gathering, messy, brilliant, and deeply alive. In such a view, therapy becomes less about correction and more about diplomacy among selves, and mental health less about conformity and more about harmony.

After all, if we were truly just one soul, how do we explain arguing with ourselves at 2 a.m., feeling joy and grief in the same breath, or the fact that our heart says one thing while our head says another? Maybe the ancients weren’t being mystical — maybe they were just being honest.