D
The fourth letter of the Phoenician, the Hebrew, the Greek, the Roman, and of nearly all alphabets. In Hebrew it is Daleth, signifying the door of life, a representation of which was probably its original hieroglyph, as in the illustration. Here 1 shows the approximation to the Hebrew Daleth; 2 the Greek Delta, resembling the [...]
DA COSTA, HIPPOLYTO JOSEPH
A native of Colonia-do-Sacramento, on the river La Plata. He was made a Freemason in Philadelphia in the United States and afterward settled in Lisbon. He was subsequently persecuted by the Inquisition, and was rescued only in time to save his life by the aid of English Brethren who got him under the protection of [...]
DACTYLI
Priests of Cybele, in Phrygia, of whom there were five, which number could not be exceeded, and alluded to the salutation and blessing by the five fingers of the hand. The word is from the Greek daktylos, meaning a finger.
DADUCHOS
A torch-bearer. The title given to an officer in the Eleusinian mysteries, who bore a torch in commemoration of the torch lit by Ceres at the fire of Mount Etna, and carried by her through the wood in her search for her daughter.
DAEDALUS
A famous artist and mechanician, whose genealogy is traced in the Greek myths as having sprung from the old Athenian race of kings, the Erechtheidae. He is said to have executed the Cretan Labyrinth, the reservoir near Megaris in Sicily, the Temple of Apollo at Capua, and the celebrated altar sculptured with lions on the [...]
DAGGER
In the advanced Degrees a symbol of Masonic vengeance, or the punishment of crime (see Vengeance).
DAGRAIN, LOUIS
A miter in the Amsterdam Journal of November 3, 1735, of an article on the subject of Freemasonry, which caused an edict from the States General forbidding Masonic gatherings throughout the country (see Thory, Acta Latomorum 11, 306).
DAGRAN, LOUIS
President of a General Assembly of thirty Lodges, held on Saint John’s Day, 1756, at the Hague, for the formation of the Grand Lodge of Holland. It was at this December meeting that Baron Van Aerssen Beyeren Van Hogerheide was appointed Grand Master (see Thory, Acta Latomorum 1, 72).
DAIS
From the French word dais, meaning a canopy. The raised floor at, the head of a banqueting room, or any ceremonial chamber or hall, designed for guests of distinction ; so called because it used to be decorated with a canopy. In Masonic language, the dais is the elevated portion of the eastern part of [...]
DAKOTA
Saint .John’s Lodge was the first Lodge in Dakota. It received a Dispensation from the Grand Lodge of Iowa, December 5, 1862, and a Charter on June 3, 1863. Representatives of this Lodge and of Incense. Elk Point, Minnehaha, and Silver Star Lodges held a Convention on June 21, 1875, to consider the formation of [...]
