Southern Cross and Pointers

The Aboriginal people of Australia have studied the stars for thousands of years and are considered the world's oldest astronomers with a long oral tradition.

There are many different stories for the Southern Cross in Aboriginal Dreaming, almost as many as there are cultural groups. The people of Yirkalla in the Northern Territory call the constellation and the adjacent Pointers Balu where the Pointers are a shark chasing a group of stingrays, the Cross. This artwork was collected by Charles Mountford during the Arnhem Land expedition in 1948. He records this drawing in his diary for 14 August 1948 (PRG 1218/17/20, p. 162)

Other groups describe the constellation as an eagle with the Cross being the eagle's foot and the Pointers his club. On Stradbroke Island in Queensland the Cross is Mirrabooka, a kindly man placed in the sky in spirit form to watch over his people.

The first European to describe the constellation was Andrea Corsali, an Italian under the patronage of the Medici family. In 1515 while travelling aboard a Portuguese ship to India he recorded his description of the constellation: 'This crosse is so fayre and bewtiful, that none other hevenly signe may be compared to it as may appeare by this figure.'

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