No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Burial at sea: Separating and placing the dead during the age of sail
Abstract
Burials at sea were common during the Age of Sail (the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries). While much is known about the history and structure of the burial at sea ritual, scholars have not yet explored its function as a rite of passage. This paper examines the burial at sea service as it was practiced aboard English and American vessels during the Age of Sail. Although it would have been easy to dispose of a body at sea by simply dropping it over the side, sailors considered it their duty to conduct a formal burial service. Proper burial, it was believed, was needed to prevent the deceased mariner from becoming one of the unquiet spirits of the deep. Thus, the chief function of the burial at sea service was to separate the dead from the living and place the spirit in the afterlife so that it would not return to haunt the ship. The restless nature of the sea, however, prevented it from being turned into a permanent barrier between the living and the dead. Even after being properly buried, the ghosts of dead mariners sometimes returned to haunt their former shipmates.
... Similar to the Chinese and Thai cultures, historically in the West, there have also been malevolent ghosts, which have also been associated with water-related death. English and American sailors in the 15th and 16th century believed that people who had died violently and/or in an accident and had not received proper burial, were not able to rest peacefully and so became restless ghosts who returned to trouble the living at sea, which is perceived as a threshold from which the dead can sometimes return (Stewart, 2005). Since the sea allows the horizontal movement of ghosts across its surface, the permeable nature of water makes the sea conducive to vertical connections between the upper-world on the surface and the underworld in the depths; thus, the sea is perceived as a threshold rather than a barrier that links the living and the dead (Stewart, 2005). ...
... English and American sailors in the 15th and 16th century believed that people who had died violently and/or in an accident and had not received proper burial, were not able to rest peacefully and so became restless ghosts who returned to trouble the living at sea, which is perceived as a threshold from which the dead can sometimes return (Stewart, 2005). Since the sea allows the horizontal movement of ghosts across its surface, the permeable nature of water makes the sea conducive to vertical connections between the upper-world on the surface and the underworld in the depths; thus, the sea is perceived as a threshold rather than a barrier that links the living and the dead (Stewart, 2005). Moreover, a ''watery grave'' does not allow for the comforting solidity offered by the earth (Stewart, 2005). ...
... Since the sea allows the horizontal movement of ghosts across its surface, the permeable nature of water makes the sea conducive to vertical connections between the upper-world on the surface and the underworld in the depths; thus, the sea is perceived as a threshold rather than a barrier that links the living and the dead (Stewart, 2005). Moreover, a ''watery grave'' does not allow for the comforting solidity offered by the earth (Stewart, 2005). ...
This study aims to assess whether or not beliefs in ghosts really deter tourists from traveling to disaster-hit destinations. To many it may appear that cultural differences do play a role in travel decision making between Asian and Western tourists. However, it is vital to provide empirical evidence of the impact of cultural differences in beliefs through a case study of the tsunami-hit destinations. Thus, this study aims to examine tourist barriers associated with tsunami-hit destinations, and also to assess cultural differences regarding such beliefs between Asians tourists from China and Thailand and Western tourists from Britain, Germany, and the United States and also across demographic profile.
... 121 At sea, it contributed to specific practices, such as that of passing a final 'stitch through the nose' when sewing up corpses into their shrouds. 122 A scared, dismayed, profoundly impressed crew posed significant challenges for a naval officer; the delicate power dynamics aboard could be uniquely upset by moments of shock and crisis, where various forms of knowledge and beliefs competed to make sense of what had happened. Themselves surprised and perhaps slightly shaken, and fundamentally impotent in the face of devastating bodily injuries, surgeons could be forced to give seamen's own convictions some space to breathe. ...
Lightning-related accidents were relatively frequent among age-of-sail seafarers, due to tall ships’ exposure and prominence above the sea. Yet lightning remains largely neglected in the historiography on sailors’ experiences. Examining a range of contemporary medical and philosophical literature, shipboard surgeons’ journals, operational correspondence and seamen’s memoirs, this article argues that lightning strikes created unique moments of epistemological and social crisis aboard naval ships. With its awesome multi-sensorial manifestations, divine symbolism and catastrophic and erratic effects on human bodies, lightning loomed large in many seafarers’ consciousness, as a powerful source of panic and trauma. At the same time, despite contemporary developments in natural philosophical understandings of electricity, surgeons’ training on how to treat these injuries remained limited. As a result, lightning could substantially affect naval shipboard relations between officers and ‘common’ seamen, creating challenges to the former’s authority and mobilising a range of competing emotions and knowledges. Considering lightning illustrates the fruitfulness of looking at uncommon but devastating types of injury, for historians interested in medical authority and in the doctor–patient relationship. It also helps us to start sketching accounts of seafaring bodies, health and maritime medical and religious cultures that give the sky its due place alongside the water.
... Often there is no exit; the son remains suspended inside. Even the dead are not immune to the sea's voracity (Stewart 2005). Insofar as waterscapes develop voracious appetites, the Mediterranean is akin to the Bermuda Triangle. ...
Over the past decade, thousands have been recorded dead or missing after attempting to cross the sea from North Africa to Southern Europe. In contrast to the governmental apathy to this plight, behind these missing people are those who steadfastly remain searching, demanding answers and seeking closure. Based on close interactions with Tunisian families involved in activism, this article sheds light on the threefold lacuna surrounding them. The slipping of their sons into the black box of intercontinental “illegal” immigration betrays the contingency of their narratives and the illusiveness of closure. We attend to these families’ responses to finding themselves in search of loved ones effectively, if not lost at sea. By thinking with and through their efforts, we decenter the locus of Mediterranean-borne stories from statist and Eurocentric anxieties to a particular set of subaltern experiences. Linking these intimate geographies to the political landscapes in which they are imbricated shows how (inter)subjectivity at the familial scale is not detached from (geo)political imagination. By triangulating between space, stories, and sapience in these families’ experiences, we recognize in their yearning and striving amidst a spatially conditioned injustice an articulation of a familial mythos underpinning a situated geopolitical intervention from below. Still, the families live the day-to-day, their hearts yearning for a reunion here and now, their eyes fixed on the northern (event) horizon. May their eyes find coolness.
... The paddle-out ceremony differs from other types of ocean rituals of death focused on disposal such as those undertaken in naval and maritime ceremonies (Stewart, 2005) and those that occur as the ashes of the deceased are scattered in the ocean. The paddle-out ceremony may include the disposal of remains, an event that is labelled a 'secondary funeral' (Walter 1994, p. 183) but it is not necessarily a disposal ritual. ...
This paper is based on interviews with self-identified surfers from both Australia and Hawaii who have extensive histories of participation in the surfing funeral or post-funeral ritual of the paddle-out ceremony. The paddle-out is an ocean-based death ritual in which the deceased are symbolically, and often materially through cremains, placed in the ocean and farewelled through highly physical ritual actions. In a paddle-out, surfing communities located at specific, and sometimes multiple places, come together to acknowledge, remember and tell stories of a member who is missing in the line-up. As a rite of passage, the paddle-out does not neatly fit anthropology’s, and particularly van Gennep’s idea of the funeral as primarily a separation ritual. Indeed, our research suggests that ideas of separation and connection, departure and continuing to mingle with the living all operate in how the ritual is experienced and interpreted. While co-extensive with Hawaiian surfing traditions, the paddle-out is also an adaptive, modern, flexible ritual open to personalisation in its form and meaning. The paddle-out ceremony is a rite passage for both the living and the dead and the deeply physical nature of the ritual provides a transformational experience of emotional release while also creating and renewing bonds and group solidarity. The circle formation, a key symbolic practice in the ritual, is central to production and self-recognition of community as participants face each other with the bereaved often placed inside the circle’s centre in a visual, physical act of support. The deceased are also symbolically placed in the centre as the ritual mourns their loss and invariably celebrates their life and surfing identity.
... Perry relates that the crew of the Continental reported seeing Louie's ghost a few days after his completely proper service. 34 Indeed, the very term "sea burial" is in a sense inappropriate -for how can a body be "buried" beneath a surface that is the very definition of fluidity? ...
T he "Age of Sail" in the West, lasting from the fifteenth cen-tury to the close of the nine-teenth, witnessed the rise of Western maritime supremacy as crews pushed ever farther across the world's oceans. Throughout the era, sailing vessels crisscrossed the world's oceans with increasing confidence. Yet even after centuries of progress in navigation, shipbuilding and sailing techniques could not guarantee the outcome of a voyage. No craft made of wood and reliant upon the wind could ever leave sight of land without some measure of risk. Thus, seafaring was first and foremost a hazardous occupation. The daily work of oper-ating a sailing ship was highly technical and often dangerous. A fall from a mast usual-ly resulted in death or maiming, and sailors who tumbled overboard often drowned. 2 Lesser accidents were common. Although most studies suggest a low overall mortality rate, the omnipresence of risk and the potential for a catastrophic wreck made death a sailor's constant companion, at least in imagination. According to an estimate by Michael A. Lewis, so many risks emerged from normal operations at sea that even during the Napoleonic Wars, as few as 6.3% of the fatalities recorded on British naval vessels actually resulted from combat. 3 Whether they manned a warship or a tea clip-per, sailors never escaped the hazards of their profession. When these risks were realized, surviving sailors typically disposed of corpses at sea. Without refrigeration or any practical way to preserve bodies for a traditional land burial, and with the added superstitions surrounding shipboard corpses and hauntings, there was no real alternative. Yet the dead could be angered by a careless disposal, and men bound together by their shared way of life (a relationship that will receive ample attention below) could not dispose of the bodies of their close comrades as they might ordinary refuse. This paper was born in an over-stuffed armchair in the Bryan Cen-ter. I needed a final paper topic for Dr. Christine Beaule's class, "The Archaeology of Death," and I needed it by 5 PM. I settled on sea burials, pausing to observe that there was surprisingly little literature on the topic. Dr. Beaule assured me that I would be able to manage. I would just have to make the most of what I could find. So I began to hunt. I tracked down a few secondary sources to build a foundation for my paper, and I scored some musty compilations of sea lore in the stacks beneath Bostock. I sent out half a dozen requests through the inter-library loan system, hoping to get half of the books in time. I had a Hollywood-style impression of what the ceremony must have been like in my head, one that drew me to the topic but answered few questions. Why weight the body? How would the surviving crewmembers have felt? How often did sailors actually die at sea? The answers to each of these came from my sources. Once I started read-ing through them, the paper took on a life of its own. All I did was follow the sources— in Writing 20 parlance, I "came to terms" with them. What you have in your hands today is almost unimaginably removed from the hazy ideas I started with. Rough though it is, I present it to you as a source in its own right. His body was reverently carried into the carpenter's shop and was laid out on the bench.
The Juno set out from Rangoon for Madras on Friday, 29 May 1795. The tons of teak in her hold had been guided down rivers from the highlands by death-defying workers who leapt from log to log. She struck a sandbank on her first day out, but the crew adjudged that the damage was not serious. But, despite caulking the affected section of the hull and pumping continually, she began to take on excessive amounts of water. Quite bizarrely, the Juno, buoyed up by her teak cargo, remained suspended with her upper deck only a metre or two below the surface. For the next twenty-three days, she rolled and drifted in the Bay of Bengal. Most of her officers, crew, and the Malay labourers on board scuttled up the rigging of the two remaining masts. We learn through the eyes of the young William Mackay what they endured, and we trace the history of his narrative with intriguing results.
This article identifies sea-burial as a topos of the early nineteenth-century imaginary that draws on both Gothic tropes and Romantic reformulations of Gothic aesthetics in order to signal a 'sea changed' poetics of shifting dislocation, decay, and denial in the work of Felicia Hemans. The loss of a corpse at sea makes visible the extent to which any act of posthumous identification relies upon a complex network actively maintained by the living. This article will also develop our understanding of the ways in which Gothic tropes of burial might extend into specifically maritime literary cultures of the early nineteenth century. This strand of a 'nautical Gothic' reflects not only nineteenth-century anxieties about nautical death but the corporeality of both individual and cultural memory. Such representations of sea-burial negotiate a nautical Gothic aesthetic that might propel new understanding of the relationship between poetry and the material dimensions of affective memorialization.
This dissertation attempts to examine whether the nature of death ritual, burial and memorialisation specifically adapts itself to a maritime context and what such adaptations can tell us about material and metaphorical relationships with the sea. This is done through an assessment of archaeological evidence from the Neolithic period in the Orkney Islands, in the hope of finding a thread of effect on funerary ritual and ritualised space which can be attributed to the cultural impression of engagement with the maritime environment. This study is not intended as a comprehensive examination of Neolithic Orkney, or the Neolithic as a whole, as the material used constitutes a very small sampling of available sets of evidence. Rather, the intent here is to grasp the basic dimensions of the Neolithic space so that elements of the lived landscape might then be examined for potential specificity of funerary ritual in a maritime context, contributing to a coarse-grained map of the maritime deathscape in Orkney. This study is therefore meant to describe wider patterns in the maritime cultural landscape relating specifically to death ritual. It is proposed that the somatic experience of death and the dynamics of death ritual may be specifically shaped by the maritime cultural environment and maritime activity, and that an understanding of these relationships may be best addressed through the construction of a theoretical framework which allows one to query bodies of evidence about various aspects of a possible maritime deathscape. Ultimately it is suggested that the relationship between the maritime environment, mortuary practice, and the cognitive landscape may be best understood within a broader theoretical framework including concepts of ritual behaviour, metaphor, materiality, agency, personhood, and maritime culture.
In 1795 an English East India Company country ship, the Juno, was wrecked in the Bay of Bengal. The buoyancy of her teak cargo arrested her sinking, and her 72 crew and passengers sought refuge in the rigging that protruded above the waves. Three years later her second mate, William Mackay, published his Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Juno, on the Coast of Aracan, describing 23 days aloft and, after a treacherous disembarkation, their arduous trek to a Company station on the Coromandel coast. This article considers the content and legacy of this narrative, contrasting its longevity with less enduring memorials.
Maritime mortality rates were declining on passenger ships in the nineteenth century, but witnessing a death and funeral during an ocean voyage nevertheless remained a common enough experience. The article explores reactions to ocean funerals on nineteenth-century British and Irish emigrant ships and also more broadly. While shock and distress inevitably figured large, other responses, including acceptance, enthusiasm and even degrees of voyeurism, were not unusual. Moreover, in common with Victorian audiences more generally, at least some emigrants had an appetite for the sensation and spectacle of the ceremony. Broader cultural interest in the ocean funeral meant that it featured in a wide range of forms including popular journalism, narrative accounts of journeys and didactic literature. Emigrants consequently did not embark as blank slates but carried with them a well-established and familiar repertoire of ideas and images about the ocean funeral. Religious beliefs about the resurrection of the soul were likewise a source of consolation. Others found comfort by depicting the ocean as a spiritual site – likening the sea to heaven, for instance – or in the belief that an ocean burial was more natural, simple and therefore meaningful than a funeral on land. The growing significance of the sea in Victorian culture also played an important role in helping contemporaries make sense of, and come to terms with, an ocean funeral. Religious ideas about life as a spiritual journey enabled many Victorian men and women to look to the ocean as a way of thinking through bigger questions about life and death.
This article considers William Mackay's 1789 narrative of the wreck of the East India Company ship, Juno, in the light of recent studies of the genre of shipwreck narrative by Blackmore, Lamb and Thompson. It reads the narrative as reflecting the dynamics of symbolic abdication experienced by survivors during such catastrophes, but proceeds to identify Mackay's efforts to discover, in the language of sentiment that was so central to the eighteenth-century episteme, a rhetorical means to imagine the preservation of a threatened (existential and social) selfhood. The article is also centrally concerned with the intertextuality of Mackay's narrative, and its dissemination into a variety of works in the century following its publication.
This cultural encyclopedia examines customs and beliefs relating to death and burial in clear, well written articles covering most major religious and cultural traditions from prehistoric to modern times.
Readers ofDeath and the Afterlife: A Cultural Encyclopediawill find that spending time with death is life-giving in most cultures today and throughout history. The Underworld, whether the Greek Hades or the Chinese Yellow Springs, is not just a repository of the dead, but the source of fertility, wealth, and hidden wisdom bestowed only upon the adventurous who cross the border between this world and the next.
This comprehensive reference work contains hundreds of entries on the sometimes obscure, complicated, and mysterious (but always fascinating) funeral customs of dozens of cultures. More than a gathering of information, this reference draws out the underlying meaning of funeral and afterlife traditions. Each entry is extensively documented and includes the insights of thoughtful native authors and commentaries directly related to the cultural topic at hand. A topic finder by culture, a bibliography, an index, and primary source references are included.
This paper focuses on anchors as links between two worlds. It examines medieval legends first, starting with mirabilia which link ships in the sky to the earth, then goes on to study those legends which link the surface of the sea to a submarine world. In tracing the evolution and interrelationships of these sets, the pivotal legend is shown to be one in which a man is lured to a submarine monastery. The remainder of the paper focuses on modern accounts of similar legends. Those involving ships in the sky and cloudland themes are instanced first. After a brief look at legends of anchors blocking submarine fairy paths, the final section takes up the lining theme in the modern context. The emphasis here is on a legend localised in Kerry in which a woman from the sea uses an anchor to trap her man.
Fair winds & foul: A narrative of daily life aboard an American clipper ship
- F Perry
Perry, F. (1927). Fair winds & foul: A narrative of daily life aboard an American clipper ship (2nd ed.). Boston: C.E. Lauriat.
Sømandens Vå Og Tørre Grav. Sjufartshistorisk A ˚ rbok
- H Henningsen
Henningsen, H. (1990). Sømandens Vå Og Tørre Grav. Sjufartshistorisk A ˚ rbok, 25 – 56.
Sea life in seventeenth-century England. The American Neptune
- C A Leguin
Leguin, C. A. (1967). Sea life in seventeenth-century England. The American Neptune, 27, 111 – 134.
Burial custom formerly observed in the naval service
- G P Bradley
Bradley, G. P. (1894). Burial custom formerly observed in the naval service. Journal Of American Folk-Lore, 7, 67 – 68.
Vampires, burial, and death: Folklore and reality Legends and superstitions of the sea and of sailors in all lands and at all times Folklore and the sea. Middletown: Published For The Marine Historical Association Mystic Seaport by Death customs: An analytical study of burial rites
- P Barber
- F Bassett
Barber, P. (1988). Vampires, burial, and death: Folklore and reality. New Haven: Yale University Press. Bassett, F. (1971). Legends and superstitions of the sea and of sailors in all lands and at all times. Detroit: Singing Free Press. Beck, H. (1972). Folklore and the sea. Middletown: Published For The Marine Historical Association Mystic Seaport by Wesleyan University Press. Bendann, E. (1974). Death customs: An analytical study of burial rites. Detroit: Gale Research Company (Original work published 1930).
Death's door: Thresholds and boundaries in British funeral customs
- R Richardson
Richardson, R. (1993). Death's door: Thresholds and boundaries in British funeral customs. In H. E. Davidson (Ed.), Boundaries and thresholds. Papers from a colloquium of the Katharine Briggs club (pp. 91 – 101). Woodchester: Thimble Press.
The English way of death: The common funeral since 1450
- J Litten
Litten, J. (1991). The English way of death: The common funeral since 1450. London: R. Hale.
Naval ceremonies, customs, and traditions
- W Mack
- R Connell
Mack, W., & Connell, R. (1980). Naval ceremonies, customs, and traditions (5th ed.). Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press.
Appearances of the dead: A cultural history of ghosts
- R C Finucane
Finucane, R. C. (1982). Appearances of the dead: A cultural history of ghosts. London: Junction Books.
Voyages and travels of Captain Basil Hall
- B R N Hall
- London
Hall, B. (1895). Voyages and travels of Captain Basil Hall, R.N. London: Thomas Nelson And Sons.
Tales and sketches by a country schoolmaster
- W Leggett
Leggett, W. (1829). Tales and sketches by a country schoolmaster. New York: Printed by J. & J. Harper.
A sea grammarRocks and storms I'll fear no more'': Anglo – American maritime memorialization
- J Smith
Smith, J. (1627). A sea grammar. London: Printed By John Haviland. Stewart, D. (2004). ''Rocks and storms I'll fear no more'': Anglo – American maritime memorialization, 1700 – 1940.
The Adelaide steam ship [Letter to the editor]. The Times
- R Young
Young, R. (1853, April 2). The Adelaide steam ship [Letter to the editor]. The Times, p. 8.
The British seaman 1200 – 1860: A social survey
- C Lloyd
Lloyd, C. (1968). The British seaman 1200 – 1860: A social survey. London: Collins.
Recollections of Publications Of The Navy Records Society Xxxi
- J A Gardner
Gardner, J. A. (1906). Recollections of James Anthony Gardner, Commander R. N. (1775 – 1814). Sir R. V. Hamilton G. C. B., & J. K. Laughton (Eds.), Publications Of The Navy Records Society Xxxi. London: The Navy Records Society.
Sam Noble, able seaman: 'Tween decks in the 'seventies
- S Noble
Noble, S. (1925). Sam Noble, able seaman: 'Tween decks in the 'seventies. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company.
Whimzies: Or, a new cast of characters Shantymen and shantyboys: Songs of the sailor and lumberman
- R Braithwaite
Braithwaite, R. (1631). Whimzies: Or, a new cast of characters. London: Printed by F. K. Doerflinger, W. M. (1951). Shantymen and shantyboys: Songs of the sailor and lumberman. New York: The Macmillan Company.