The Pollywogs also referred to as landlubbers must be dipped in water for the initiation and passing into the realm of the seas. This part is the beginning of the ritual wherein they are stripped down to their underwear or nothing! Following the dip, raw eggs are broken onto the heads of the first timers and then they are made to drink a deadly concoction of beer, chilly sauce, raw eggs etc.
The reason behind this is to give the beginners a truth serum in order that they speak the absolute truth when they swear their allegiance to King Neptune and the sea! Then the heads are shaved in the most uneven manner possible no historical reasoning for it, but personally judging, it is most likely to do with a purging process and paint is applied at random all over the body privates aside!
Myriad approaches to conducting the ceremony will yield myriad accounts. However, the essence of it will remain the same. King Neptune goes to make an earnest speech and accepts the ushering of the sailor into the sea under the auspice of Her Majesty! The scepter is laid forth to mark this moment of truth. Following this aspect of the grand event, the sailors are tied together and marched forward to the anchor with the sound of a drum to coordinate movement.
Once at the anchor, the newly initiated are made to crack open a can of beer on the anchor itself at the first go. Cracking it open at once pertains to long luck and safe seas. This having completed, an entire round of the shop is taken to commemorate the event altogether. At the end of it, the Captain, Chief Engineer and the rest, as a mark of welcoming and respect, congratulate the initiates.
A feast is prepared at night for dinner with thorough fanfare. For the coming days, it is very easy to spot the sailors that have recently been through the ordeal, for their hair is either absolutely absent or styled as if rats had a feeding frenzy on them!
As appalling as it may seem to shore folk, it is a tradition that makes a man out a fresh cadet or trainee seaman. It is these little gems that bind us seafarers together in work and spirit and give us the inner strength to carry forward inspire rough seas and long periods away from home. Crossing the equator was a right of passage for the rookies.
In the past, these events were often cruel and involved a great deal of hazing of the pollywogs by the shellbacks. After a significant amount of punishment and harassment had been dealt, pollywogs could finally join the ranks of the more experienced shellback sailors. Tales of these ceremonies go back to Captain Cook. Some officers, however, were able to avoid the embarrassing ritual by paying the shellbacks. Equator crossing ceremonies are still carried out today onboard various ships including those in the United States Navy and Coast Guard, as well as pleasure cruises and research boats.
Today the event is often a morale booster or a celebration of the achievements of the sailors or passengers on board. Although the hazing has been removed, the ceremonies still function as a sort of initiation ritual. SF Fig. The wogs then ascended a ladder to the boatdeck to slide down a makeshift chute into the baptism of messdeck leavings in sea water in an inflated liferaft back on the superstructure deck.
Wogs then returned to the forecastle , where they were hosed off by firehose and then allowed to kiss, in turn, the belly of the sea-baby, the foot of the sea-hag, and the ring of King Neptune , each personified by shellbacks.
Sailors undergoing the ceremony were physically and verbally abused before being subjected to an act called "sump on the rump", where a dark liquid was daubed over each sailor's anus and genitalia. One sailor was then sexually assaulted with a long stick before all sailors undergoing the ceremony were forced to jump overboard until permitted to climb back aboard the submarine. A videotape of the ceremony was obtained by the Nine Network and aired on Australian television.
The television coverage provoked widespread criticism, especially when the videotape showed some of the submarine's officers watching the entire proceedings from the conning tower. Most navies have since then instituted regulations that prohibit physical attacks on sailors undergoing the line-crossing ceremony.
In modern times, rather than a dreaded rite of initiation, the line crossing ceremony has become a popular tradition in the U. Navy and the U. Coast Guard. The ceremony is carefully orchestrated by the ship's officers, with some enthusiastic sailors chafing at the degree to which harassment was disallowed. Line-crossing ceremonies are also carried out on many merchant ships. However, without the oversight of military justice, they can often get out of hand and lead to the abuse and assault that occurred in line-crossing ceremonies of the past.
Baptism on the line , also called equatorial baptism , is an initiation ritual sometimes performed as a ship crosses the Equator, involving water baptism of passengers or crew who have never crossed the Equator before. A popular patch has also been created for shellbacks that depicts Neptune battling a sea serpent with his trident.
We do hereby declare to all whom it may concern that it is Our Royal Will and Pleasure to confer upon him the Freedom of the Seas without undue ceremony. Should he fall overboard, We do command that all Sharks, Dolphins, Whales, Mermaids and other dwellers in the Deep are to abstain from maltreating his person.
This is to Certify, that This is the text from a certificate issued on a United States Navy ship during the s:. Know ye, that I command my subjects to Honor and Respect him as one of our Trusty Shellbacks. Roosevelt CVA , under way to Rio de Janeiro, crossed the line on 4 July , and its crew became known as "Star Spangled Shellbacks"; however, no previous mention of such honor has to date been located. Submariners often become "Top Secret Shellbacks" having crossed the equator at a classified degree of longitude.
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