The ceremonies attendant upon "Crossing the Line" are thought of by many as almost as inescapable an item of seafaring custom as those undertaken upon the launching and naming of a newly-built vessel. Line-crossing initiation ceremonies are widely known and recognised as traditional drama afloat. The "Line" alluded to is ordinarily the Equator; however, other initiations of a similar type occur and those will also be touched upon in this presentation. A good deal of background work and collection of documented reports on this subject has been undertaken by Lydenberg (Crossing the Line: Tales of the Ceremony during Four Centuries, 1957) and Henningsen, (Crossing the Equator: Sailors' Baptism and Other Initiation Rites, 1961), but the major source of data will be the researcher's private collection of tape-recorded interview material, the Halley Maritime Collection, and her own personal experience.
The earliest ceremonies to mark the crossing of the equator appear to have been primarily religious in character and there is no way to fix their date of origin with accuracy, although the early Portugese explorations in Africa probably mark their initial occurrence and they rapidly became established custom. Since that period, seafarers have carried on such ceremonies in a virtually unbroken line of tradition (Lydenberg, pp. 8-9). This paper will deal chiefly with the phenomenon in its twentieth-century observance.
Line-crossing rituals follow a typical pattern of reversal of authority, as do certain other rites in quasi-dramatic form, such as those of the mock king or boy bishop, where the lowliest are raised to temporary supremacy and the exalted are correspondingly reduced in rank. The ratings, rather than the officers aboard a vessel, are temporary and superficially at least, in full charge during these rites. Such transitory role-reversal frequently features in mock rites of passage, while the authority assumed in actual rites of passage is real and sustained beyond the temporal limits of the ceremonies themselves.
Among the more interesting aspects of the ceremony covered by this paper will be the variations in the cast of characters between North American and British flag vessels and the wide range of "punishments" inflicted upon the initiates. These and the varying degrees of enthusiasm with which the participants, both members of Neptune's retinue and would-be initiates, greet these ceremonies appear to have particular relevance to the main theme of this conference. Certificates of passage will also be compared and their diversity of character discussed.
Not all of the ritual involved in the line-crossing ceremonies is something which could easily be characterised as "fun". Instead, as is true of many initiatory rites, it is often a matter of "getting level" and settling of scores, an actual attack under the guise of tradition in cases where lowly ratings can harass and distress persons of the standing of officers and wealthy passengers without fear of reprisal. In wartime, it also served as a relief for tension whereby, through inventive wit and humour, the crew (and passengers, if there were any) found a means to cope with the constant stress and threat of danger.