Because Crux never rises above the horizon for most of the Northern Hemisphere, it belongs distinctively to the sky traditions of peoples who can actually see it, and several independent Southern Hemisphere cultures read the same four bright stars as meaningful figures long before European navigators adopted the cross imagery that gave the constellation its modern name.
In Aboriginal Australian sky traditions, accounts of the stars later mapped as Crux vary considerably between language groups and regions, as is generally true of Aboriginal astronomical knowledge, which was never a single unified system but a great many distinct traditions tied to particular Country and lore; some traditions read the four stars together with the nearby Pointer stars as a stingray, an eagle's foot, or a possum in a tree, among other figures, rather than adopting the cross reading at all.
Maori tradition in New Zealand names the constellation Te Punga, the anchor, understood as belonging to the great canoe formed by the Milky Way, while Polynesian navigators across the wider Pacific used Crux, alongside other reliably visible southern stars, as a practical aid for holding a course and estimating latitude on long open ocean voyages, a navigational role quite distinct from any mythological reading attached to the figure. The cross reading itself, the one that gave the constellation its Latin name and its modern IAU boundaries, spread through European navigation and Christian devotional association after the age of exploration brought southern latitudes within regular European observation, layering a comparatively recent interpretation over sky knowledge many Southern Hemisphere peoples had already held for a great deal longer.