MALLERY.] THE DAKOTA CROSS. 25 
out, gently, but into unknown night. The center of the cross is the 
earth and man, moved by the 
conflicting influences of the 
gods and winds. This cross is 
often illustrated as in Fig, 1225. 
It is sometimes drawn and de- 
picted in beadwork and also on 
copper, as in Fig. 1226, ex- } 
tracted from the Second Ann, i 
\ | 
Fig. 1225.—Cross. Dakota. Fig. 1226.— . Ohio mound. 
Rep. Bur. Ethn., Pl. Lu, Fig. 4, where it appears cut out of a copper 
plate found in an Ohio mound. 
3ut among some of the Indian tribes the true Latin cross is found, 
viz, upright with three members of equal length, and the fourth, the 
foot, much longer. The use of this symbol antedates the discovery of 
America, and is carried far back in tradition and myth. When a mis- 
sionary first asked a Dakota the name of this figure, which he drew for 
him in the sand, wishing to use the information in his translation of 
Bible and Creed, the Dakota promptly replied Sus-be-ca, and retraced 
the figure saying “That is a Sus-be-ca.” It was therefore promptly 
transferred to Scripture and Creed where it still reads ‘* He was nailed 
to the Susbeea,” ete. “God forbid that I should glory save in the 
Susbeea of our Lord Jesus Christ.” To the good missionary this was 
plain and satisfactory; for the Dakota had demonstrated by tracing it 
in the sand that Susbeca was the name of the figure called in English, 
‘“eross.” The foregoing statement is made on the excellent authority 
of Rey. S. D. Hinman. 
But when the Dakota read his new Bible or Creed, he must have 
been puzzled or confused to find, ‘ He was nailed to a mosquito-hawk,” 
or, “God forbid that I should glory save in the mosquito-hawk of our 
Lord Jesus Christ.” 
The same disposition of straight lines which is called the Latin cross 
was and is used by the Dakota to picture or signify both in pictograph 
and gesture sign, the mosquito-hawk, more generally called 7 | 
dragon fly. The Susbeca or mosquito-hawk is a super- 
natural being. He is gifted with speech. Hewarnsmen b 
of danger. He approaches the ear of the man moving 
carelessly or unconcernedly through the deep grass of the an Ape 
meadow or marsh—approaches his ear silently and at right 
angles, as shown in Fig. 1227a, and says to him, now ea, ee 
alarmed, “Tci”-“tei”-“tei!”—which is an interjection on fly. © 
