Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Why pirates wore gold earrings

Why sailors crossing the equator undergo humiliation

The age of pirates happened to coincide with the big Elizabethan/Renaissance jewelry craze. - Image by Rick Geary
The age of pirates happened to coincide with the big Elizabethan/Renaissance jewelry craze.

Dear Matthew Alice: A friend and I have had a long-standing argument regarding why the sailors of old pierced their ears. Nowadays everybody and his uncle does it, but I believe it was because, on a voyage, they had crossed the equator. My friend says it's because they survived a shipwreck. Who is right? Or are we both wrong? — ]. Simmonds, Vista

Sponsored
Sponsored

I think you mean “pirates” of old. Don’t recall Popeye or Admiral Farragut wearing dangly rhinestones. And no matter how you and your friend are accessorized, your guesses are wrong. Pirates wore gold earrings because they believed it would help their vision. Sailors in general have always been very superstitious, and pirates in particular left nothing to chance. When you depend on the element of surprise to grab the swag, anything you can do to sharpen your senses is probably worth a try. And the age of pirates and buccaneers just happened to coincide with the big Elizabethan/Renaissance jewelry craze, when women and men piled it on. Men with fashion savvy pierced a lobe or two and attached something appropriately ostentatious. But even if a pirate wanted to wear a tasteful pair of Jackie Kennedy-style pearl clip-ons, he couldn’t, because screw-back earrings and ear clips weren’t invented until the 1890s. The pierced-ear earring is the original and is thousands of years old.

Traditionally, a lot of things happen when a sailor crosses the equator for the first time, but ear piercing isn’t usually one of them. On military, merchant, and even cruise ships, “pollywogs” (equatorial virgins, if you will) are subjected to more or less goofy/humiliating/revolting initiation ceremonies in the presence of someone dressed as “King Neptune,” at which time the initiates become “shellbacks.” The tradition is as old as nautical charts and grew out of mariners’ fears of the doldrums, bands of calm winds and periodic fierce thunderstorms that circle the globe both north and south of the equator. Ships could be stuck in the doldrums for weeks, so whatever you might do to appease Neptune was encouraged. Nowadays lots of these shellback ceremonies involve men dressed as women and plenty of cross-gender shenanigans of the balloon-boobs-and-wigs variety (as one officer once said, “Navy ships run on repressed sexual energy”). At the end, you might get an official shellback certificate, but I don’t think you get any earrings. And as for surviving a shipwreck, coming out alive is its own reward.

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

How Much Time Do I Get With My BetterHelp Therapist?

Next Article

Reader writer fends off attacks on Encinitas cliff story

Says each letter writer takes on only part of the article
The age of pirates happened to coincide with the big Elizabethan/Renaissance jewelry craze. - Image by Rick Geary
The age of pirates happened to coincide with the big Elizabethan/Renaissance jewelry craze.

Dear Matthew Alice: A friend and I have had a long-standing argument regarding why the sailors of old pierced their ears. Nowadays everybody and his uncle does it, but I believe it was because, on a voyage, they had crossed the equator. My friend says it's because they survived a shipwreck. Who is right? Or are we both wrong? — ]. Simmonds, Vista

Sponsored
Sponsored

I think you mean “pirates” of old. Don’t recall Popeye or Admiral Farragut wearing dangly rhinestones. And no matter how you and your friend are accessorized, your guesses are wrong. Pirates wore gold earrings because they believed it would help their vision. Sailors in general have always been very superstitious, and pirates in particular left nothing to chance. When you depend on the element of surprise to grab the swag, anything you can do to sharpen your senses is probably worth a try. And the age of pirates and buccaneers just happened to coincide with the big Elizabethan/Renaissance jewelry craze, when women and men piled it on. Men with fashion savvy pierced a lobe or two and attached something appropriately ostentatious. But even if a pirate wanted to wear a tasteful pair of Jackie Kennedy-style pearl clip-ons, he couldn’t, because screw-back earrings and ear clips weren’t invented until the 1890s. The pierced-ear earring is the original and is thousands of years old.

Traditionally, a lot of things happen when a sailor crosses the equator for the first time, but ear piercing isn’t usually one of them. On military, merchant, and even cruise ships, “pollywogs” (equatorial virgins, if you will) are subjected to more or less goofy/humiliating/revolting initiation ceremonies in the presence of someone dressed as “King Neptune,” at which time the initiates become “shellbacks.” The tradition is as old as nautical charts and grew out of mariners’ fears of the doldrums, bands of calm winds and periodic fierce thunderstorms that circle the globe both north and south of the equator. Ships could be stuck in the doldrums for weeks, so whatever you might do to appease Neptune was encouraged. Nowadays lots of these shellback ceremonies involve men dressed as women and plenty of cross-gender shenanigans of the balloon-boobs-and-wigs variety (as one officer once said, “Navy ships run on repressed sexual energy”). At the end, you might get an official shellback certificate, but I don’t think you get any earrings. And as for surviving a shipwreck, coming out alive is its own reward.

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Time’s up for Doubletime Recording Studio

Owner Jeff Forrest is trading El Cajon for Portugal
Next Article

"Christmas Berry" is decorating our landscape, Longest meteor shower of the year

Full "cold moon," extremely high tides
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader