The Line-Crossing Ceremony

Sail through the Equator, and Neptune himself will welcome you to the seafaring community! Become one of us salty seadogs. Harr. Or something. A short interview by the assembled jury of Neptune, his wife, kid, and the confirmed members of the nautical fraternity. There will be of course a few hilarious trials to test your mettle, such as, in no particular order, being pelted with eggs, greased up, given revolting drinks and fed disgusting food. We will have such a laugh. You too, only, next time. The usual procedure, really, nothing special, just your classical hazing, with a nautical theme and a geographical imperative. Welcome to the line-crossing ceremony, the initiation ritual for those crossing the equator by ship for the very first time.

They all had done it. They were all Shellbacks, although they did not know the term. All of my family were part of that global community – so they kept repeating.  

Over the years, I crossed the Equator many times myself. I never got greased up. Never felt like doing it, nor that I was missing something. 

This carnival, however, took pride of place in the loop of movies we watched, and that absolutely fascinated me. Being told, being shown, how much this ceremony had meant to them, that group of people getting hazed on screen, that made the whole ocean steam liner experience surreal. As if crossing the street was the most amazing adventure. 

Whether you call it hazing, a tradition or just a fun occasion, the line-crossing ceremony exists since centuries, across the globe, and is still alive across navies and some passenger crossings. 

There is undeniably a logic to its existence, to what it meant and to what it means. But it looks and sounds like the ossified echoes of a time when travel was rare, destinations obscure and the trip itself an approximate reality. We live with the potential freedom to be anywhere we wish on the globe tomorrow. 

A freedom won and a wonder lost.

If you are going to sail for weeks in a metal or wooden contraption, with rigid discipline and absolute obedience by necessity, basic human management means that you will engineer occasions to blow off steam. By the same token, you will want to structure the group you manage into sub-hierarchies sharing some experience: veterans versus newbies is a good start. If we landlubbers catch cabin fever after just a few days in 75 square meters, imagine the effect of weeks, months, sailing in hostile elements, cooped up in a precarious floating device you are bound to operate without fail.

Crossing the Equator? Going “on the other side”? What better occasion for experienced crew to haze the new meat. Maybe throw in a bit of social reversing, some titles, and voilà, a beloved tradition you have: the line-crossing ceremony.

Now, you can apply that to the Navy, but you can understand its marketing appeal to a wider audience. Further, you need to fill in the activity roster for your laying customers, your passengers. Reading and watching movies is only good for that long, so a live nautical tradition, which also confers some title and clout, how to pass on that. And the bonus token is that, it works as well for your crew. After all, why not make fun of the passengers themselves at the same time after weeks of serving them? A true carnival then in the traditional sense, a reversal of social order, as in ancient Rome, or in Europe’s Carnaval. 

Your clients will be part of the exclusive Brotherhood of the Sea, they can look forward to do the greasing up next time. 

And so passengers, and my family, would studiously record, recall and retell the tale of the line-crossing ceremony: the day before, when the prospects, the Slimy Wogs, would pull cautious pranks on the hardened Shellbacks. Of course, as in many hazing traditions, some cross-dressing parade. And then the Tribunal of the Sea; until Neptune, Amphitrite and their Baby make you officially a hardcore, salty seadog. That’s why they are called Shellbacks, after all. 

Recollections and mental images that never failed to bring smiles and guffaws all around memories of ritual humiliations of something as mundane as crossing the Equator.

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