400 Years of Equator Hazings

The subject of crossing the equator came up in a discussion of the Rio Olympics, and we all slightly recalled that you had to go through some kind of ritual, but no one could recall what they heard it was. We figured it varied by the organization you were with. Ben Marks went through that experience recently on a French research vessel and lived to tell about it. Then he did more research on such rituals, which are really a form of hazing. Marks talked to Dr. Simon Bronner of Penn State University, author of Crossing the Line: Violence, Play, and Drama in Naval Equator Traditions.

“Well, I can give you a manifest reason and a latent reason for the practice,” Bronner begins, referring to the obvious and subconscious justifications for the tradition. “The manifest reason is around the idea that the equator itself is some kind of a liminal twilight zone, if you will, because its latitude is 0, 0, 0. There is a certain religio-magical connotation to the equator, so the ceremony is a way to indicate that one is traveling not only through space but also time, through some kind of a liminal reversal zone.”
For the record, Pascal never mentioned anything about liminal reversal zones when he was binding my wrists, smashing raw eggs on my head and face, or offering me a sip of water after I’d been standing in the sun for an hour, only to find out that it was seawater. After I realized what I was about to swallow, I spat the stuff in his face, which elicited from Pascal a loud, staccato laugh, and earned me another wink.
“Latently,” Bronner continues, “there is a lot of tension when you’re on a ship because you’re in this master-servant role. On a ship, the idea of discipline and obedience is much more emphasized than in other branches of the armed forces because a ship is a danger zone—discipline and obedience can save lives. So, I think the ceremony is partly a release from all that. Often the officers who are crossing the equator for the first time are treated the harshest. But there is a sense among the participants that there is license to do many of the ceremony’s activities within the framework of play that you couldn’t do anywhere else. The activities serve as an equalizer and ice breaker, especially in institutions, organizations, or groups whose members are strangers to one another.”

Collectors Weekly has a history of equator crossing rituals, and a blow-by-blow description of Marks’ two-hour ordeal -with pictures.