Naval Rituals 1
Running head: NAVAL RITUALS
The Shellback Ceremony as a
Rite of Passage
Alan Augustson
University of New Mexico
The Shellback Ceremony as a Rite of Passage
One of the most revered traditions among members of the United States Navy, and one of the least talked about, occurs when the ship aboard which one serves crosses the equator. At this time, sailors graduate from being 'polliwogs' (or just "'wogs") and achieve status as a 'Shellback', slang for a turtle.
The implication in the naming refers to the seasoning or 'hardening' of an experienced sailor and his or her right to wear such experience on the proverbial sleeve. There are variations on the common theme, for instance, one becomes a 'Golden Shellback' should the vessel cross the equator where it meets the zero meridian.
The Ceremony in Detail
In advance of the ceremony, the initiates each receive a 'summons' written using an excess of legal jargon, allegedly originating from the Court of King Neptune. In this (usually rather ornate) document, it is alleged that the subject, willfully and with malice aforethought, did trespass on the King's High Seas while maintaining the status of a lowly 'wog. The 'defendant' is ordered to appear before the Court when summoned, on the day of the ship's crossing of the equator.
Well before sunrise on the morning of the day of the crossing (five to five-thirty is very typical), the 'wogs are awakened by the existing initiates, amidst much shouting, profanity, banging of implements, the abrupt switching-on of all lights, the blaring of alert tones (in some cases), the use of the communications speakers, and just about any other noise or other stimulatory source at hand.
In some cases the 'wogs are permitted to dress, albeit hurriedly and accompanied by much shouting. In other cases the 'wogs will simply be herded out of their quarters in whatever they slept in. The initiates are crowded in shifts into the chow hall on ship, where they will consume a breakfast generally consisting of eggs and/or cooked cereals, all dyed with a generous amount of green food coloring. Milk, likewise dyed green, is often served also, or the 'wog may be encouraged to drink green beer. As they eat they are hurried along by existing Shellbacks, who make continual inferences that the food and/or drink are tainted with garbage, excrement, semen, bilge waste, or other substances to whose mention the 'wogs are likely to react negatively.
Not long after sunrise the 'wogs are made to crawl through a series of chutes, made from plastic sheeting and filled with unidentifiable sludge. Generally this sludge will consist largely of grease, oil, and often scraps of leftovers from the morning meal; but hints and rumors will be circulated (instigated by existing Shellbacks) that the sludge includes bilge waste and excrement, which may or may not be true depending upon the individuals responsible for assembling and preparing the chutes. The chutes, ranging in diameter, will often force an initiate to belly-crawl, thereby ensuring that he or she is covered in slime at the end of the network of tunnels.
The climax of the event is the presentation of each 'wog before the Court of King Neptune. The King is portrayed by the oldest or most senior of the existing class of Shellbacks. Predictably, his Queen is a male in garish drag. Accompanying them is a Royal Baby, a male, nude except for a diaper. The 'wogs each make obeisance to the King and Queen, and kiss the well-greased belly of the Royal Baby. Penance thus having been served and loyalty sworn, the initiate is pronounced a Shellback, to the cheers of the previously initiated sailors. The completed ceremony and cleanup are often followed by a party lasting well into the night.
Peripheral Considerations Relevant to the Ceremony
The Shellback ritual is no respecter of age or rank. A sailor who has (somehow) accumulated decades of service without participation in the ceremony is expected to do so as willingly as a seaman apprentice fresh from boot camp. Officers, likewise, are expected to participate as well as enlisted, and indeed the more senior officers usually throw themselves into the rite with greater humor and enthusiasm than their juniors.
The question of gender, however, is considerably stickier. Among numerous others, Svoboda and Crockett (1996) clearly illustrated the hostile and counterproductive nature of sexually-charged work environments and practices. However, now that females are a fact of life on long voyages, they themselves demand full participation in all aspects of naval life, and many dive into the Shellback ceremony with gusto. Others, as is their prerogative, may choose not to participate at all. This refusal cannot be cause for any kind of official sanction, denial of benefits, or other differential treatment. Indeed, anyone, male or female, officer or enlisted, technically has the right to refuse the Summons. But this refusal will quite definitely result in the sailor's being ostracized aboard ship and, on return, on shore as well. Although no black marks will appear in the individual's service record, he or she will be hounded by rumors, gossip, epithets, and second-class-citizen treatment which will only cease when they leave the naval service, or transfer to a unit that by chance has no acquaintances with the former one.
Analysis of the Ceremony from Different Perspectives
The initiation process is a nearly picture-perfect illustration of “communitas” a la Victor Turner (1969). Separation from the larger group is pretty much already accomplished, via the ship's embarkation and the system of segregation of quarters and facilities by rank. The ceremony is much more illustrative of the liminal, or threshold, stage. In this, antistructure is achieved by ignoring the ages, genders, rank, or position of the participants, by removing or at least defacing clothing and uniforms, by feeding all participants the same, allegedly tainted food, and by the equal degree to which abuse is continually heaped upon all. These are good illustrations of the liminal phase as described by Turner (1969, 106).
But what is missing from the Turner model is the transformative aspect of ritual. Because modern military protocol and its class structures are already rigidly defined, and because the Shellback ceremony exists only on an unofficial basis (there is no prescription for its performance, nor is it documented in any military manual; knowledge of the ceremony is transmitted only orally and in private photographic records), there are no references to differential treatment of 'wogs and Shellbacks. Apart from the privilege of harassing the next generation of initiates, there are no powers or privileges granted to the new Shellback.
But if the Shellback ritual is not transformative, neither is it communicative by the standards of Clifford Geertz (Ortner, 1978, 5-7). There appear to be no values expressed in the process, apart from the spirit of participation for its own sake and the camaraderie that arises from shared suffering. Perhaps these things are enough for the purposes served by the Shellback rite, but what purposes might these be? There is no indication of meaning in 'being' a Shellback, only what penalties are incurred from the 'refusal to be'.
An Alternative Psychological Perspective
The meanings and purposes of the Shellback ritual can only be guessed at, but there may be value in looking at the process from a psychological point of view. The Shellback ceremony dates back through generations of sailors, to that time when a transoceanic cruise was an endeavor that could literally take years. Survival itself on such a voyage would have been a major accomplishment, and celebration of that survival would provide not only a necessary emotional release but also an end that could more meaningfully justify the means of rationing food, water, alcohol, and supplies; of all of which there were never nearly enough. So rituals like the Shellback ceremony could be an example of mitigation of waste and pilfering by providing opportunities for controlled indulgence.
The length of the classic voyages may also explain, indirectly, the obvious homoerotic elements of this and many other ceremonies and rituals associated with the naval service. The extreme duration of voyages made the accompaniment of women impossible, since sexual access to any women aboard would be on a differential basis, probably according to rank, privileges, and resources. This theory is supported by the repeated occurrences of scandals and disciplinary actions in the modern Navy and Coast Guard, where women are no longer excluded from seagoing vessels. In these frequent events, commanding officers or other senior personnel have been censured for the maintenance of affairs with women under their command, usually young, junior-grade enlisted personnel.
In an environment where cooperation between crewmates was essential to survival, this would not do. So women were barred from aboard ship, a practice that eventually grew into a superstition that women were simply 'bad luck' aboard a naval vessel. It is not such a stretch that this taboo would eventually give rise to misogyny in general and homosexuality in particular.
In modern times, that misogyny has endured intact but the 'tradition of sodomy' has been watered down to accommodate our Judeo-Christian hatred of homosexuality. Remaining fragments include transvestism (such as a newly-inducted chief petty officer having to greet all arriving vehicles to the base in exaggerated drag), excessive homoerotic humor (involving, ironically enough, members of other services such as the Marine Corps), repeated aggressive sexual metaphor (such as referring to a court-martial as “getting reamed”, or the ritual climbing of an enormous greased pole by Academy midshipmen), and other such forms of expression. Indeed, the naval service has no corner on the misogyny market: witness, for instance, the curious choice of words of a Virginia Military Institute graduate (“Warrior Mentality”, 1997), specifically where he refers to his alma mater as having to “fundamentally pervert” its nature in order to accommodate female cadets.
Conclusions and Discussion
Thus we see the Shellback ceremony with possible roots in very practical matters: providing psychological release, rerouting anxiety resulting from sexual deprivation, and controlling the consumption of vital material assets. While these things obviously exist in the modern naval service, they do not exist to anywhere near the same extent; and so it becomes easy to see naval rituals as anachronistic, pointless, and even highly counterproductive. Weighed in modern context, this may be so. But if a thing must be judged (particularly with an eye towards the elimination of that thing, as is so often happening with a modern military at the hands of independent and superior outsiders), an understanding of that thing should be required beyond this, here, and now.
References
Ortner, S.B. (1978). Sherpas through their rituals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Robinson, R.A. (1997, January 16). The warrior mentality, neutered [Letter to the editor]. The Wall Street Journal, p.19.
Svoboda, J.M. (1996). Subculture roleover-the anatomy of a hostile environment. Initiatives,57.
Turner, V. (1969). The ritual process. Chicago: Aldine DeGruyter.