Origins: What is the Southern Cross

Subject: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: GUEST,lloyd64
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 07:42 AM

I found a song that has the term "Southern Cross" in it. What is the Southern Cross?

Lloyd64

Subject: RE: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 07:53 AM

Hello, Lloyd

The SOuthern Cross is a very prominent star group seen from the Southern Hemisphere. It's on the Australian flag.

I don't search the web - all I do is type in the occasional URL so I can't advise you on how to find a pic of the the flag or the Cross itself, but you could try the following site www.nla.gov.au/oz/gov

Or else you could try encyclopedias (paper ones or on line!!)

sandra

Link repaired by Mudelf

Subject: RE: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: Skipjack K8
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 08:02 AM

Alan Bond's stalking horse before the Australia campaign for the 1983 America's Cup. I have the T shirt.

Subject: RE: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 08:02 AM

Thanks.

Lloyd64

Subject: RE: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: ballpienhammer
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 08:29 AM

The Southern Cross is a prominent constellation in the sky of the Southern Hemisphere. It is used for navigation much as the Big Dipper and Orion are used in the NH.

Subject: RE: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: masato sakurai
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 08:46 AM

It's on The Australian Flag.

Here's a Southern Cross (Crux) photo.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: EBarnacle1
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 10:26 AM

You may have heard a song by that name, referring to a square rigger voyage. It is a memorable song, with a driving rhythm.

Subject: RE: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: C-flat
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 11:13 AM

It's also a public house on the outskirts of Middlesbrough, N.E. England. My band played there a couple of weeks back. I don't think anyone wrote a song about that pub though!

Subject: RE: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: 53
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 12:22 PM

a boat according to crosby stills nash and young

Subject: RE: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: open mike
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 12:50 PM

the reason the big dipper is used for navigation is that it
can be used to find Polaris-the North Star which is always
at North. I believe the southern cross has a similar function-
\but does anyone know which individual star it is ,if any,
that is used to establish compass bearings in the southern hemisphere??

Subject: RE: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: MMario
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 01:34 PM

there is no southern polestar.

Subject: RE: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 01:36 PM

On the New Zealand Flag too.

Subject: RE: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: Duane D.
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 11:01 PM

According to my copy of the Peterson Field Guide to Stars and Planets, I quote, "The 5th-magnitude star sigma Octanis, lying within 1 degree of the south celestial pole, is the southern pole star. Though it is very inconspicuous compared with Polaris and lacks the Pointers and Little Dipper that make Polaris easy to find, sigma Oct is easily visible to the naked eye in a dark sky."
I had to do this research because, as an active deepsky observer, I have never observed the celestial south pole and I've only observed the sky as far south as is visible from southern NJ.

Subject: RE: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: masato sakurai
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 08:23 AM

The New Zealand Flag

Subject: RE: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: Pied Piper
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 08:49 AM

Bit of thread drift here.
When the Egyptians built the pyramids at Gaza there was no easily observable North Star so they used the point mid way between two other stars to align the pyramids.
Over the years these stars moved relative to North and as result it is possible to get accurate dates for the start of building each pyramid.
All the best PP

Subject: RE: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: aussiebloke
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 09:30 AM

This page tells you one method (there are others) for finding south using the Southern Cross, and also how to tell the time by it...

The Southern Cross constellation is prominent in the Australian skies (and on my belt-buckle), and was used as a flag, now known as the Eureka Flag during the ill-fated Eureka Stockade uprising in Ballarat, Victoria, in 1854. "A flag born out of adversity and almost 150 years later still looked upon as a symbol of nationalism." For many Australian is its the 'real' Australian Flag, as it shows no Union Jack in the corner, and symbolises the struggles of the working man against unjust oppression.

THE OATH OF THE EUREKA FLAG

The miners in Peter Lalor's patrol were all sworn in by him before the Battle of the Eureka Stockade "It is my duty now to swear you in and to take with you the oath to be faithful to the Southern Cross. Hear me with attention. The man who, after this solemn oath, does not stand by our Standard is a coward in heart. I order all persons who do not intend to take the oath to leave at once."

"We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties."

A picture of the remains of the original flag can be found here.

Raffello Carboni in his published account of the Eureka uprising (R.Carboni, The Eureka Stockade, Melbourne, 1855) wrote of the flag;

There is no flag in Europe or in the civilised world half so beautiful... the flag is silk, blue ground, with a large silver cross; no device or arms, but all exceedingly chaste and natural.

To counter any accusations that I'm trying to make Mudcat a Flag and history site, instead of a music site - I'll toss in a musical reference to the Southern Cross...

This extract from: Poor Ned (Redgum) - full lyrics here

You know they took Ned Kelly
And they hung him in the Melbourne Gaol.
He fought so very bravely
Dressed in iron mail.
And no man single handed
Can hope to break the bars.
There's a thousand like Ned Kelly
Who'll hoist the flag of stars.

Cheers

aussiebloke

Subject: RE: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: GUEST,Penny S. (elsewhere)
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 11:57 AM

On the very interesting Time Team archaeology programme they once visited a Mediterranean island (one of the Balearics, I think, or maybe Malta) to dig an ancient enclosure. They discovered that its entrance was aligned to the Southern Cross, visible at the time of building as it crossed the meridian, just above the horizon, at certain times of the year. Due to the precession of the equinoxes, it is not now visible this far north. it would be interesting to know if the builders actually saw it as a cross, as there is no central star (as in Cygnus) or in some other way - an aperture, maybe.

Penny

Subject: RE: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: GUEST,legbabgoode
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 05:10 PM

In the blues, "goin' where the southern cross the dog," and lines like it, were in all likelihood encoded messages about the underground railroad. I'm not sure what the southern cross constellation would have to do with that, but the southern railroad ran east-west through the Mississippi delta, and "the dog" is surely the North Star. Such messages were common in slave songs, used to help runaways find their way to freedom. Lively metaphors, they probably became common sayings, which would explain their survival into the blues, and perhaps beyond, even when their original meaning and intent had been lost.

Subject: RE: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 07:54 PM

There is another "Southern Cross"- a Southern patriotic song by that name written by St. George Tucker during the American Civil War. It has some interesting lines including:

How peaceful and blest was America's soil,
Till betrayed by the guile of the Puritan demon,
Which lurks under Virtue, and springs from its coil,
To fasten its fangs in the life-blood of freemen.
Then loudly appeal to each heart that can feel,
And crush the foul viper 'neath Liberty's heel;
And the Cross of the South shall forever remain
To light us to freedom and glory again.
(p. 35-36)

"War Songs of the South," 1862, Wm. G. Shepperson, 216 pp., West and Johnson, Richmond, VA. On line in the University of North Carolina Documenting the American South Series. War Songs

Subject: RE: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: masato sakurai
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 08:09 PM

The blues legbabgoode referred to above isn't about the stars. See these pages:

Where the Southern Crosses the Dawg

Where the Southern Cross the Dog

Moorhead and the Blues

~Masato

Subject: RE: Origins: What is the Southern Cross
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 15 Nov 02 - 08:31 PM

Do you believe escaping slaves needed these supposed little "encoded" messages? They were much more inteligent then that. "The Drinking Gourd" is another put forth as an escape song, but I think J. Frank Dobie and his friend had their tongues firmly in their cheeks when they came up with the story and verses.