Prismtect › Constellations › Crux
the Southern Cross
Four bright stars make a small cross, the smallest of all 88 constellations. Two bright pointer stars in Centaurus lead to it. The long axis of the cross points toward the south celestial pole.
Crux appears on the flags of Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Papua New Guinea and Samoa. Many peoples of the south used it to find south at night.
Beside the cross lies the Coalsack, a dark cloud of dust that blocks the Milky Way behind it, seen as a black patch.
The Greeks could see these stars and Ptolemy counted them as part of Centaurus.
In many Aboriginal cultures the Coalsack beside the cross is the head of the Emu in the Sky, a figure made of dark dust lanes rather than stars.
The Māori name is Māhutonga.
People in Indonesia and Malaysia see a ray: Bintang Pari and Buruj Pari, "ray stars".
In Quechua, the Inca language, the cross is Chakana, "stair" or bridge, a name with deep meaning in Andean belief.
In India the cross is linked with Trishanku Swarga, a heaven that, in an old story, the sage Vishwamitra created.
The Tswana of Botswana saw two giraffes, Dithutlwa: a male and a female.
The Kalapalo of Mato Grosso see angry bees swarming out of the Coalsack, their hive.
The Greeks could see these stars and Ptolemy counted them as part of Centaurus. In the fourth millennium BC the cross was fully visible as far north as Britain. The slow wobble of Earth's axis then lowered it, and by AD 400 it never rose over most of Europe. Europeans met it again on sea voyages. In 1455 the Venetian Alvise Cadamosto called it the "southern chariot", and in 1516 the Italian Andrea Corsali called it a cross more beautiful than any other sign in the sky.
In many Aboriginal cultures the Coalsack beside the cross is the head of the Emu in the Sky, a figure made of dark dust lanes rather than stars. The cross itself is a possum sitting in a tree to the Boorong of Victoria, the sky deity Mirrabooka to the Quandamooka of Stradbroke Island, a stingray to the Yolŋu of Arnhem Land, and an eagle to the Kaurna of Adelaide. In Aranda tradition the four stars are an eagle's claw. Torres Strait Islanders see them as the left hand of Tagai, the fisherman.
The Māori name is Māhutonga. It is the anchor of Tama-rereti's canoe, the Milky Way, and the two Pointers are its rope. In Tonga it is Toloa, a duck flying south with a wounded wing, hit by a stone thrown by the "two men", the Pointers. Tongans call the Coalsack Humu and Samoans call the cross Sumu, both meaning triggerfish.
People in Indonesia and Malaysia see a ray: Bintang Pari and Buruj Pari, "ray stars". The Javanese call it Gubug pèncèng, "the raking (slanted) hut". Bugis sailors steer by it with Mu Crucis, calling it "the incomplete house star".
In Quechua, the Inca language, the cross is Chakana, "stair" or bridge, a name with deep meaning in Andean belief. The Mapuche of Patagonia call it Melipal, "four stars".
In India the cross is linked with Trishanku Swarga, a heaven that, in an old story, the sage Vishwamitra created.
The Tswana of Botswana saw two giraffes, Dithutlwa: a male and a female. Tuareg people of the Sahara see the four stars as four trees of a desert shrub.
The Kalapalo of Mato Grosso see angry bees swarming out of the Coalsack, their hive. The Bororo and the Mocoví of Argentina both place the cross in a great rhea, the South American ostrich. In the Mocoví sky, two dogs in Centaurus chase it.
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