Creossing the Line - Violence, Play and Drama in Naval Equator Traditions PDF
Preview Creossing the Line - Violence, Play and Drama in Naval Equator Traditions
* omslag Meertens EC 2 25-07-2006 16:58 Pagina 1 MEERTENS ETHNOLOGY CAHIER 2 MEERTENS ETHNOLOGY CAHIER 2 Crossing the Line For centuries, new sailors from European and North American countries have embraced often brutal hazing in an elaborate ceremony at sea called ‘crossing the line’(British-American) and ‘Neptunusfeest’(Dutch). Typically enacted upon crossing the equator, the beatings, dunks, sexual play, mock baptisms, mythological dramas, crude shavings and haircuts, and Violence, Play, and Drama drinking and swallowing displays have attracted a number of protests and even bans as well as staunch defenses and fond reminiscences. in Naval Equator Traditions The custom has especially drawn criticism since the late twentieth century with the integration of women into the military and the questioning SIMON J. BRONNER of its hierarchical codes of manliness. In this study, the persistent ceremony’s changing meaning into the twenty-first century is examined with considerations of development, structure, symbolism, performance, and function. A timely study revising previous assumptions about the custom's origins, diffusion, and functions. Simon J. Bronner (1954) is Distinguished University Professor of American Studies and Folklore at Pennsylvania State University and director of theCenter for Pennsylvania Culture Studies in Harrisburg. He specializes in Material Culture, Visual Culture, Gender, Folk Art and Tradition. He was Fulbright Professor of American Cultural Studies at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands (2005). He wrote and edited many important books in ethnology and folklore studies. 978 90 5356 914 6 ISBN-13 90 5356 914 6 ISBN-10 www.aup.nl 9789053569146 Amsterdam University Press Amsterdam University Press Crossingthe Line Crossing the Line Violence, Play, and Drama in Naval Equator Traditions Simon J. Bronner The Meertens Ethnology Cahiers are revised texts of the Meertens Ethnology Lectures.These lectures are presentedby ground-breaking researchers in the field of ethnology and related disciplines at the Meertens Institute in Amsterdam, a research facility in language and cultureintheNetherlands TheMeertensInstituteisaresearchinstituteoftheRoyalNetherlands AcademyofArtsandSciences MeertensInstitute DepartmentofEthnology POBox GGAmsterdam www.meertens.knaw.nl MeertensEthnologyCahier SeriesEditor:PeterJanMargry [email protected] Illustration frontcover:King Neptune Rex ordersRoyalNavigatortohead ship acrosstheequator,February,.Fromlefttoright:RoyalQueen;RoyalBaby (withsoileddiapers);KingNeptune;RoyalNavigator.(CollectionofSimonBron- ner) Photobackcover:SallyJoBronner Coverdesign:KokKorpershoek,Amsterdam Layout:JAPES,Amsterdam ISBN ISBN ISSN - NUR ©AmsterdamUniversityPress, Allrightsreserved.Withoutlimitingtherightsundercopyrightreservedabove,no partofthisbookmaybereproduced,storedinorintroducedintoaretrievalsys- tem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans(electronic,mechanical,photo- copying,recordingorotherwise)withoutthewrittenpermissionofboththecopy- rightownerandtheauthorofthebook. United States Secretary of the Navy John H. Dalton had a problem. The Navy’s reputation was under attack. Lurid videotapes aired on television broadcasts in mid- riveted public attention on appar- ently brutal nautical initiations, criticized as abusive hazing in repor- ters’ editorial comments. As a Navy man, Dalton knew the context for these initiations was a traditional ceremony called ‘crossing the line’ for sailors traveling across the equator, and he heard from insi- dersthatcriticsoutsidetheNavycouldnotcomprehendthefunction, indeedthenecessity,ofthetradition.Whatmighthaveseemedtoout- sidersasvulgarorcruel,heunderstoodasaritualthatinstilled,asno classroomsessioncould,valuesessentialtotheNavy.Formanyveter- ans, the ceremony defined the sailors’ folk experience, their sense of identityintheNavy,andasafolktradition,ithadnotbeensubjectto official regulation. With public pressure mounting, Dalton felt com- pelledtoissueInstruction.onOctober,.Inhiscarefully worded statement, he balanced on the one hand the view of those who defended the ‘playful’ and ‘time-honored’ practices providing beneficial socialfunctions,andontheother,publicconcernthatsuch eventsfosteredmisogyny,violence,andabuse: Militarycustoms andtraditions have longbeen anintegral part of theNavyandMarineCorps.Althoughinthepastsomehazinghas occurredinconjunctionwithceremonies,initiationsorritesofpas- sage,theseactivities,ifproperlysupervised,canbeeffectiveleader- shiptoolstoinstillespritdecorps,unitcohesionandrespectforan accomplishment of another Sailor or Marine. While most ceremo- nies commemorate the many selfless feats of bravery of our mili- tary men and women, they also commemorate significant events. ThesefeatsandeventsformthebasisuponwhichourCoreValues of Honor, Courage and Commitment were founded. Graduations, chiefs’initiations,‘crossingtheline’ceremonies,andothersarenot only meant to celebrate and recognize the achievements of indivi- dual Sailors or Marines or those of entire units. Service members mustbeabletoworktogether,building-up,encouraging,andsup- portingtheirshipmates.Hazingbehaviorthatisdegrading,embar- rassingorinjuriousisunprofessionalandillegal. Dalton’smessagewasthatthetraditionasceremonywasuseful,ritual as hazing was not. He offered a list of illegal activities constituting hazing: ‘playing abusive or ridiculous tricks; threatening or offering violenceorbodilyharmtoanother;striking;branding;taping;tattoo- ing; shaving; greasing; painting; requiring excessive physical exercise beyond what is required to meet standards; ‘pinning’; ‘tacking on’; ‘bloodwings’;orforcingorrequiringtheconsumptionoffood,alco- hol, drugs, or any other substance.’ Further, he insisted that hazing need not involve physical contact, but could also be ‘verbal or psy- chologicalinnature.’ The instruction begged the question of how hazing functioned within the ceremony if it indeed ran counter, according to Dalton, to core Naval values. Dalton essentially gives an ethnological analysis by positing that traditions provide beneficial social consequences of instilling esprit de corps and unit cohesion. With the instruction, Navy traditions were more open than ever before to public scrutiny. Asaresult,pressreleasesfromshipsavoidedthesecrecytraditionally associated with the rituals, and emphasized ethical conduct. Upon crossingtheequator,CommandingOfficerCaptainJ.ScottJones,for instance,publiclyannouncedthattheUSSBonhommeRichardhad‘a great celebration of this important passage.’ ‘All of our Sailors and Marines joined the esteemed ranks of Golden Shellbacks,’ he re- ported,‘andtheydiditinafunanddignifiedway.’Butmanyseamen felt that the new ‘dignified’ tradition lost its significant purpose of buildinggritand evenmanliness, especially since theNavyincompe- titive moments prided itself on being the toughest of the military branches. As one sailor wrote the Navy Times to complain about the new regulations, the military was turning its slogan of ‘A few good men’ with associations of courage and aggression to mean ‘A few sissycreampuffs’,therebysuggestingaprimaryfunctionoftheritual toinstillvaluesofmilitarytoughness,orassomecriticshaveasserted, homophobiaandmisogyny. The instruction wasnot thefirst ban on hazingactivities forafleet involvedinritualisticceremoniesatsea.In,theDutchEastIndia Company prohibited the ritual dousing (zeedoop) in a written de- claration,probablybecauseofinjuriesinflictedonsailors. Theadded incentives of double rations at the company’s expense for ship crews thatabandonnedtheritualsuggestthatthecompany’sedictalonewas not effective. The Company further tried to displace the dunking withthecustomarythanksgivingofferingoflibationforcrossinglines ofdangerandthedirectivethatwhenshipsreachplaceswheredunk- ing traditionally occurs, gallons of wine (flapkans) be distributed. Swedish maritime law of , apparently modeled on the Dutch ban, made a similar call for replacement of dunking observed upon passing a ‘point or headland’ with the provision to ‘every member of thecrewwhohasnotsailedpastthatpointbefore,onecanofwineto everymessamonghiscrew,sothatallgetadrinkofit.’ The early Dutch involvement, and protest, predating by at least a century the first American accounts of the ceremony, raises another question I will address of the source, diffusion, and development of the tradition. In my analysis, the functions ascribed to the tradition needtobeexaminedtoseeifDalton’ssummaryofitsmeaningiscon- sistentlyatwork.MuchofDalton’sexecutiveconcernandofscholars generally has been on the consequences of the ceremony, although they do not give explanation of the cultural structures, symbols, and processes that define, and distinguish, the tradition. In this essay, I offer more attention to structural and presumptive aspects of the tra- dition in its varied forms, to locate meanings from sailors’ participa- tionthatoftenruncountertosocialcohesion.Thisapproachanswers thequestionofwhytheceremonyasaNavaltraditionpersisted,even flourished,despiteprotestsoverthecenturies. In addition to using ethnographic accounts, particularly from the United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands, I have mined his- torical sources dating from the sixteenth century on, suggesting ori- ginsofthetraditioninWesternEurope.Thisfindingisnotnew,butI divert from previous scholars who have given the Dutch hardly any credit, or blame, for the emergence of the tradition, and I argue that the tradition is more varied and adaptive inits development than has been recognized. Particularly addressing the contemporary American controversy over the official restriction of ‘hazing behavior’ in Naval traditions,Ianalyzethediscourseofmanlinessandsocialhierarchyas a special Naval status raised by critics calling for treatment of the militaryasanoccupationwithinacivilsocietyandaccountabletoits egalitarian ethics. I argue that the Naval ceremony uses the narra- tive structure of withdrawal from reality, the geographic symbol of the equator, and the metaphorical use of Neptune mythology as key conceptsofatraditionthatenforcesaspecialsailor’spraxisaswellas identity.Initsstructure,rhetoric,andperformance,‘crossingtheline’ is intended to mark the passing of the boundary of the familiar. The ceremony enacts the penetration into a new mythological zone, often viewed as dangerous and mysterious, leaving behind the familiar realmofhometocreateareversed,dividedworld. Structure and Passage Scholars and sailors alike describe the ceremony colloquially referred toas‘crossingtheline’inEnglish,Neptunusfeest(Neptunefestival)or zeedoop (dunking in the sea) in Dutch, hønses for linjen (footing for the line) in Danish, Linientaufen (baptism at the line) or Äquatortau- fen (equator baptism) in German, and passage de la ligne (passage of the line) in French as a rite of passage or initiation into the ranks of the seaworthy. Most often, it occurs upon the occasion of crossing theequator,although variations oftheceremony areenacted forpas- singthetropics,internationaldateline,andarcticcircle.Thefrequent reference in scholarship to the ceremony as a rite of passage invokes folklorist Arnold van Gennep’s tripartite structure for ceremonies of initiation from one life stage to another in which the central task or ‘transition,’ as he called it, replaces a major trauma with a manage- able one. The universality of rites, Van Gennep suggested, is ex- plained by their function of encouraging adjustment to change in the life course for the individual and its stabilizing function of institutio- nalizing society’s expectations and values for the future. Ethnologi- cal scholars such as Henning Henningsen and Keith Richardson, for example, apply Van Gennep when summarizing the ceremony meta- phoricallyasariteofpassageofbaptismwithritualbirthandrebirth, althoughitisalsopossibletofindacrawlthroughachute,mocktrial and punishment, mythological pageant, and mock kidnapping and ransom as central rituals in the ‘transition’stage. Rather than con- stituting a singular ritual, these diverse enactments demonstrate that the ceremony in contemporary practice has several themes or phases, suggesting therefore the dramatization of a multi-episodic narrative ratherthanasingulartripartiteritual. A narrative rendering of a contemporary equator crossing cere- monymightfollowthisoutline: I. Separationfromhome(initialsituationandabsentation) . Civilians told that they will change, mature, and strengthen afterbecomingasailor. . Civiliansbecomesailorsbyvirtueofanofficialtrainingperi- od(‘bootcamp’)inahomecountry. . Distance is created from home aboard a ship on the open waters. II. Separate world described and interdiction given to the hero (in- terdiction) . Sailors categorized in discourse aboard ship as divided be- tweenshellbacks(villains)andpollywogs(heroes). . Shellbacks are experienced, having crossed the equator, and are depicted as superior, if evil or corrupted, beings answer- ingtothemythologicalworldofNeptunusRex.
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