KEY TERM!

BINARY OPPOSITION

This is a sophisticated but important idea that will help you understand how ideas and meanings are being shaped, created or reinforced in a text. It is 'a theory of meaning' and an idea that can be applied to all texts; it is especially useful when analyzing poetry where meaning has been 'compressed' into a very few words.

In the mid-20th century, two major European academic thinkers, Claude Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes, had the important insight that the way we understand certain words depends not so much on any meaning they themselves directly contain, but much more by our understanding of the difference between the word and its 'opposite' or, as they called it 'binary opposite'. They realized that words merely act as symbols for society's ideas and that the meaning of words, therefore, was a relationship rather than a fixed thing: a relationship between opposing ideas.

For example, our understanding of the word 'coward' surely depends on the difference between that word and its opposing idea, that of a 'hero' (and to complicate matters further, a moment's thought should alert you to the fact that interpreting words such as 'hero' and 'coward' is itself much more to do with what our society or culture attributes to such words than any meaning the words themselves might actually contain).

Other oppositions that should help you understand the idea are the youth/age binary, the masculinity/femininity, the good/evil binary, and so on. Barthes and Levi-Strauss noticed another important feature of these 'binary opposites': that one side of the binary pair is always seen by a particular society or culture as more valued over the other.

When studying any kind of literature, it is worth looking for the ways in which layers of meaning are being created, shaped or reinforced by this sense of 'binary opposition'. In Simon Armitage's poetry, for instance, you might notice the binary opposition he creates between the ideas we associate or attach to 'sincerity', 'genuineness' and 'truth' because of our culture's utter dislike of their binary opposites, 'insincerity' and 'lies'.

Recognizing such binaries can open up the ideas the writer is trying to express. Look out for these oppositions as they can allow a deep understanding of what is happening in the text as well as alerting you to the "BIG PICTURE" (see below) - what it is all about.
 

(here's the:)

BIG PICTURE

Whenever you need to discuss aspects of a text, remember never to skim read it. Before you can write in any meaningful way about it you will need to have grasped its big picture. This means gaining an understanding of exactly what it is about, who it was written for and why it was written.

You will also need to consider what might have motivated the writer to write the text and the circumstances under which it was created, that is aspects of its writer's context. It can also be important to take account of genre conventions and expectations as well as aspects of the reader's context as interest and interpretation can sometimes vary according to the reader's own situation.

With these details you can then open your answer by creating an effective overview of the text - of its content, genre, audience and purpose. Details of its style are left for the remainder of your answer.

It is an unfortunate fact that each year many students give shallow answers in exams that show they have skim read their texts. The moral of this tale: don't be a skim reader!

The Western psyche has been split asunder by the dualistic assumptions inherent in our way of seeing the world. Foremost among these assumptions is that humans are separate from and superior to Nature. Many of us suffer from this fundamental distortion of reality. We have been uprooted from our original spiritual 'home' in Mother Earth. As a consequence, our hearts long for something but we're not quite sure what it is.

The School of Natural Wonder (SNW) seeks to mend this wound to our psyches by offering experiential, nature-based programs designed to help people connect deeply with the natural world, themselves, each other, and Spirit, however that may be experienced. It is believed that Nature, as the dwelling place of Spirit, is our first and foremost teacher. Because we are not separate from Nature, the rhythms, inhabitants, and relationships of the natural world mirror back to us aspects of our own souls.

Dwelling upon the Earth in a sacred way returns us to our true nature. Buried beneath the masks of civilization lies an indigenous soul within us longing to emerge into the light of the sun, to sing and dance with joy, to reclaim that which is wild, holy, and free within us.

Towards this end, SNW offers a sacred, supportive container in which participants can experience contemplative, participatory, and ceremonial ways of being in Nature. The basic model for all our programs is the Vision Quest, an ancient rite of passage, which we have adapted for modern use drawing on many wisdom traditions. The Vision Quest places participants alone and fasting within the womb of Mother Earth where they can give birth to the truth and beauty of their own souls.

The Vision Quest can serve different intentions. It is a powerful, ceremonial way to mark, honor and celebrate any life change, to discover one's own meanings and purpose, to seek renewal, to heal old wounds, to connect with Spirit. In addition, it is a particularly powerful vehicle for helping young people negotiate the momentous passage from childhood to adulthood.
 

Ultimately, for us, 'vision' comes in the moment that we are fully present to our inner life and the presence of the 'Other,' whether human, animal, tree, rock, river, wind…. With that vision we are transformed and the world as well.

We invite you to join us on one of our transformational programs, so that you may discover your true nature in the heart of Nature.

 

"Furthermore, we have not only to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination; we shall find a god; …where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world."

-Joseph Campbell

 

 

Liminal Awareness

Most of us know about subliminal awareness—the type of awareness lurking below actual consciousness that powerfully influences behavior. Freud brought it into the mainstream of Western thought through exhaustively detailed revelations of its effects on behavior. But few, including Freud, have spoken of liminal consciousness, which is therefore rarely recognized in modern scholarship as a separate type of awareness. Nonetheless, liminal awareness was the principal focus of mentality in the preconquest cultures contacted, whereas a supraliminal type that focuses logic on symbolic entities is the dominant form in postconquest societies.5

Liminally focused consciousness is very different from the supraliminal type that has almost entirely replaced it. Within the preconquest cultures observed basic sensibilities (such as of identity, number, space, and truth) shape up in unexpected ways. So does human integration. Preconquest groups are simultaneously individualistic and collective—traits immiscible and incompatible in modern thought and languages. This fusion of individuality and solidarity is another of the profound cognitive disparities that separate the preconquest and postconquest eras. It in part explains why even fundamental preconquest cultural traits are sometimes difficult to perceive, much less to appreciate, by postconquest peoples.

From the Latin language underlying our Western heritage we can understand that liminal awareness, by definition, occurs on the threshold of consciousness. This concept, though abstract, provides a useful term. In the real life of these preconquest people, feeling and awareness are focused on at-the-moment, point-blank sensory experience—as if the nub of life lay within that complex flux of collective sentient immediacy. Into that flux individuals thrust their inner thoughts and aspirations for all to see, appreciate, and relate to. This unabashed open honesty is the foundation on
which their highly honed integrative empathy and rapport become possible. When that openness gives way, empathy and rapport shrivel. Where deceit becomes a common practice, they disintegrate.

Where consciousness is focused within a flux of ongoing sentient awareness, experience cannot be clearly subdivided into separable components. With no clear elements to which logic can be applied, experience remains immune to syntax and formal logic within a kaleidoscopic sanctuary of non-discreteness. Nonetheless, preconquest life was reckoned sensibly—though seemingly intuitively.

With preconquest consciousness largely unencumbered by abstract concepts, it remained unconstrained by formal categories of value and cognition (i.e., rules and stable cognitive entities). Only when awareness shifted from liminal to supraliminal did the notion of 'correctness' become a matter of concern—e.g., behaving `properly,' having `right' answers, wearing `appropriate' clothes, etc. `Improper' aspirations, inclinations, and desires were then masked as people tried to measure up to the `proper' rule and standard. They used rhetoric and logic argumentatively with reference to norms, precedents, and agreements to gain and maintain dignity, status, and position. It was an altogether different world from that of the preconquest era where people freely spread their interests, feelings, and delights out for all to see and grasp as they lurched toward whatever delightful patterns of response they found attractive.

The outstanding economic condition (edit: of preconquest cultures) is absence of private property, which allows constant cooperative usage of the implements and materials of life for collective benefit. The human ecology engendered by the interaction of these outstanding conditions makes the forcing of others (including children) to one's will a disruptive and unwholesome practice. It was not seen.

Any form of subjugation, even those barriers to freedom imposed by private property, are the kiss of death to this type of life. Though durable and self-repairing in isolation, the unconditional open trust this way of life requires shrivels with alarming speed when faced with harsh emotions or coercion. Deceit, hostility, and selfishness when only episodic temporarily benumb intuitive rapport. When such conditions come to stay and no escape is possible, intuitive rapport disintegrates within a brutally disorienting period of existential trauma and anomie. With no other models about except those of conquerors, a `savage-savage' emerges from the wreckage of a once 'noble-savage'. These more brutal beings adjust to the postconquest milieu by adopting formal group identities. First they internalize various abstract ideas of space, boundary and kinship introduced by their conquerors. They then use them to anchor claims of their own to turf. They devise rules and customs that clearly identify them as a distinct people with formal rights. From this process different kinds of cultural elaboration emerge in separated regions—until a harsher level of conquest presses their uniqueness to extinction. Sorenson - Preconquest Consciousness

Spawning Preconquest Consciousness

Preconquest mentality emerged from a sociosensual infant nurture common to its era but shunned in ours. When I first went into those isolated hamlets in the deep New Guinea forests I was dumbfounded by the lush sensuality of infant care I saw in the southern reaches of what the new Australian administration called ‘South Fore’.⁶

This type of nurture was studied in greatest detail among the New Guinea forest-dwelling hunter-gatherer-gardeners on the southern slopes of the Kratke Range just after Western contact in the early 1960s. They provided the initial model for liminal consciousness. Bordering them to the north were people whose adoption of sweet potato as their staple was despoiling forest lands and undercutting the free range requirement of their traditional preconquest way-of-life. Among them an indigenously emerging supraliminal type of consciousness was coming into being.

In the isolated hamlets in the southern forests, infants were kept in continuous bodily contact with mothers or the mothers’ friends—on laps when they were seated, on hips, under arms, against backs, or on shoulders when they were standing. Even during intensive food preparation, or when heavy loads were being moved, babies were not put down. They had priority.

There was always a place for them against the body of a ‘mother’ or close associate. Loads could be shed or lightened, but babies were simply not put down, not deprived of constant, ever-ready, interactive body contact—even when the group was on the move under difficult conditions.
Babies responded to this blanket of ever-ready empathetic tactile stimulation by tactile responses of their own. Very quickly they began assembling a sophisticated tactile-speech to transmit desires, needs, and states of mind. They didn’t whine or cry to get attention; they touched. While babies everywhere are liminally aware, the constant empathetic tactile contact required to produce a sophisticated type of preverbal communication is rare—except among preconquest peoples.

Eliciting delight from babies was a desired social norm, and attentive tactile stimulation was the daily lot of infants. It included protracted body-to-body caressing, snuggling, oral sensuality, hugging, fondling, and kissing. The seductive aspect of the play was frequently collective as older children singly or in combination used their inventive wiles to delight a baby. In their hamlets crying might be heard in reaction to accidental pain, but I don’t recall a single case of disgruntled whining or demanding crying.⁷

Regarding sibling rivalry, these southern hamlets also contrasted considerably with those of the sweet potato farmers in the north. Only in their villages could sibling rivalry be seen.⁸ I tried hard to find at least one occurrence in those remote forest hamlets of the south, but it did not appear.

With nourishment, comfort, and stimulation constantly on hand, infants did not have to wait helplessly to have their needs met. They had no emotional need to anchor their libidos to abstract concepts of time, place, or kinship; and abstract foundations of awareness such as these were not imprinted on their nascent consciousness

As babies grew, their interests widened to the materials, objects, and activities at hand. They had amazing freedom to explore momentary whims and interests. At first, they did so with one hand on the ‘mother,’ the other reaching out. Then they began making short sorties further and then further out from their ‘mothers’; just a few steps at first, then some more. Such moving out was on their own. Though a ‘mother’ or a ’sibling’ might nod to encourage a baby who seemed uncertain about proceeding, they did not intervene or direct the baby’s interests or directions. They stayed just where they were, doing whatever they had been doing—but as bastions of security to which babies could return for comfort, assistance, or a sense of surety. Though elders did not go with babies on their jaunts, they were ever ready to assist with whatever might be brought to them. Babies joined the activities of elders; elders did not join theirs.

Not put aside when work was being done, infants remained constantly in touch with the activities of life around them, their tiny hands ever reaching out to whatever items or materials were in use, and onto the hands, arms, and muscles of the users. In this way even as tiny babes-in-arms they began accumulating a kinesthetic familiarity with the implements and activities of life.

This familiarity, supplemented by a rapidly developing ‘tactile-talk,’ produced in toddlers an ability to manage objects and materials safely that might be dangerous elsewhere. When first sojourning in those southern hamlets, I was repeatedly aghast to see toddlers barely able to stand upright playing with fire, wielding knives, and hefting axes—without concern by anyone around. Yet they did not burn down their grass/bamboo abodes or chop off their toes and fingers. During all the years I spent within their communities, I never saw these babies hurt themselves while engaged in this type of independent exploration.

When tots explored outward, their antennae stayed tuned to the affect, mood, and musculature of those they left behind, thereby maintaining affective connection across space. With adults and older children constantly a source of gratification rather than obstruction, toddlers had no desire to escape from supervision. Even slight intimations of concern from those behind, such as a tensing of musculature, was enough to stop a baby in its tracks and cast about for cues. While mothers in many places feel within themselves the kind of pain that might be looming for their baby, it’s not so instantly perceived. Faster than any words of warning could be formed, these New Guinea tots were already responding. No words necessary. If some subtle ‘all-clear’ cue did not quickly come, the infant made fast tracks to ‘home base: No reckless plunges onward, no furtive tricks to escape supervision.

When babies began acquiring verbal speech, their words and sentences floated out atop a sophisticated body-language already well in place. Even after acquiring spoken language, tactile-talk continued taking precedence in much of daily life. It conveyed affect better. It was faster and more direct. Most of all it touched more deeply and more quickly into the hearts and minds of others. Tactile-talk was affect-talk. It integrated the spontaneous affect of individuals, often many at a time. So adept did young children become at this that they would at times merge actions into wordless synchrony.⁹ With such rapport surrounding them tots could also safely enter into the rough-and-tumble play of older children. There were no games with rules, no formal skills to measure up to. Play was spontaneous, improvised, and exploratory, so small children were never in the way. Instead, their wide-eyed enthusiasm was a constant source of pleasure for the older children. The younger children were always welcome and were handled with intuitive regard and delight.

If some aggravation unwittingly occurred in the course of active play, it withered quickly within the collective empathy. Negative feelings thus faded before they had a chance to grow. Full-blown expressions of, for example, anger or sadness, were therefore very rare. That, too, contributed to the intuitive rapport that so delighted them.

Up to about seven or eight years of age, boys and girls played together, disporting in mixed groups in the gardens amid the plantings. Boys continued garden dalliance until about the age of eight or nine; then their interests shifted and their hearts turned toward exploring further regions with other boys. Small gangs went first down one trail, then another, through all the dispersed hamlet segments to the furthest gardens and beyond. Girls did not like this moving all about. They preferred the sensual relaxation of garden life, quiet, tactile play with one another and with smaller children. By 12 to 13 years of age they were merging garden sensuality with cultivation skills so artfully and seductively that they were attracting older males.¹⁰ By their early teens they were often married.

Boys that age continued hunting and exploring out into the forest with like-minded comrades. Acquiring much of their own food there, they often ate and slept together in the ‘boys’-houses’ they constructed or took over. During adolescence, their rapport intensified. A rapid flow of synchronous regard began uniting them even more closely as they scattered through the forest, each constantly enlivening the others by a ceaseless, spirited, individualistic input into a unified at-oneness. The phenomenon was alien to my Western consciousness, and so beyond the English language that there are no good words for it even in the Oxford Unabridged. So, when trying to describe that kind of unity in English, the words bump up against each other as if contradictions—as in individualistic unified at-oneness, a phrase self-contradictory in English, and yet another indication of the magnitude of the gap separating these two types of consciousness. The following event illustrates:

One day, deep within the forest, Agaso, then about 13 years of age, found himself with a rare good shot at a cuscus in a nearby tree. But he only had inferior arrows. Without the slightest comment or solicitation, the straightest, sharpest arrow of the group moved so swiftly and so stealthily straight into his hand, I could not see from whence it came.

At that same moment, Karako, seeing that the shot would be improved by pulling on a twig to gently move an obstructing branch, was without a word already doing so, in perfect synchrony with Agaso’s drawing of the bow, i.e., just fast enough to fully clear Agaso’s aim by millimeters at the moment his bow was fully drawn, just slow enough not to spook the cuscus. Agaso, knowing this would be the case made no effort to lean to side for an unobstructed shot, or to even slightly shift his stance. Usumu similarly synchronized into the action stream, without even watching Agaso draw his bow, began moving up the tree a fraction of a second before the bowstring twanged.

He grasped the wounded cuscus before it might regain its senses and slipped out onto a slender branch that whizzed him down to dangle in the air an inch or so before Agaso’s startled face. The startle had begun its standard transformation to ecstasy, when Usumu startled him again by provocatively dropping the quivering cuscus onto his naked foot, as he flicked a tasty beetle he’d found up in the tree into the pubis of delighted young Koniye (the youngest of the group). Doubly startled in quick succession, Agaso was wallowing in an ecstasy, then shared by all, until he abruptly realized that the cuscus might come back to life and dash off.” Then in a mirthful scramble they all secured it.

Within that type of spirit they roasted both beetle and cuscus on an open fire (to which two friends exploring separately added grubs they’d found in a rotting log). As night came on, one-by-one, they all dropped off to sleep together, entangled in what can only be described as a contagiously subdued rapture coalescence. It took many years for me to understand the underpinnings of this guileless hypersensual interactive unity (another example of the kind of language awkwardness that arises when speaking of events across eras).

In these isolated southern groups, such rapport by exploring boys was not restricted to comrades; it radiated out to strangers, too. With heightening elan, these youthful gangs would radiate into the graces of new faces in the forest. The following bit of oral history shows how a band of ‘Fore’ boys seduced even the aversive, warlike Awa,’ a people from an altogether different setting, way-of-life, and language family.¹² I heard variations of this story in many hamlets throughout the Waisarampa Valley in the 1960s. It tells of the first contact between the hunting-gathering-gardening southern ‘Fore’ and the instinctively hostile taro-growing Awa’ from the great grasslands of the upper Lamari Valley. It is reconstructed here from several accounts:

One day, somewhat before World War II, two bands of youths, one Fore the other Awa, were ranging out from their widely separated hamlet homes into the dense uninhabited forest ranges that stood between these different peoples. It was the first time either group had ventured out so far.

The Awa boys had darted from a side trail out onto a knife-edged promontory down which they were proceeding above the Lamari River, when they found themselves between the rear and forward elements of the Fore boys going out there too. With both front and rear blocked by Fore, and ridge sides at that point too precipitous to scramble down, they had no place to turn. They were hemmed in too closely to think of raising bows—or perhaps they were too young to think of it, or perhaps because they were so young their funny-bones got tickled, or the situation was so strange they simply went agog. For whatever reason, the antagonistic Awa nature didn’t surface, and despite a gaping language barrier amity broke out.

They compared bows and arrows (the Awa had the best), then food (the Fore sweet potato was an instant hit). They examined each other’s different kinds of dress and compared physiques.¹³ When showers threatened, melding diverse building styles, they improvised a leaf-thatched shelter and spent the night close onto one another in the Fore sensual style. By morning they were bosom buddies.

At first light, they were up and out along the ridge on a hunt together. They showed off their different hunting styles, bagged a tree-kangaroo, cooked and ate it with the remaining sweet potato. When they separated to go back home, they made a date to meet at the same shelter at next full moon. The Awa promised to bring arrows to exchange for sweet potatoes.

Following this second meeting, two younger Awa boys, entranced by the prowess of their stronger new Fore friends, returned to stay with them in their hamlet for several days. Two Fore boys then went for a sojourn in the Awa hamlet of Yakia. They took a sack of sweet potatoes to trade for arrows.

In this way the two gangs became good friends and built a boys’-house near the famous knife-edged ridge to stay in together. Soon that site became an entrepot for Fore-Awa trade, mainly arrows for sweet potatoes. A larger house was built to accommodate the flow. The Awa boys picked up Fore words, and the Fore, ever fond of playing with new expressions, picked up theirs. Soon all were speaking a Fore-Awa blend.

Later, two Fore sisters married two of the Awa youths and took possession of the older boys’-house (which then became a women’s-house). The just-built new boys’-house then became a men’s-and-boys’-house (by virtue of the marriages). With wives in residence, more gardens rapidly appeared. A sister of an Awa boy married his closest Fore comrade. So another women’s-house was built, which she occupied with her unmarried Awa girl-friend (the 13-year-old sister of one of the original Awa boys). She soon married one of the Fore boys.

In this way the first mixed Fore-Awa hamlet in the region came into being. As more cross-marriages occurred, a genetic merging of those Awa and Fore began. More mixed hamlets came into being—on both sides of the Lamari. When the government arrived, they called those on the east side of the river, Awa,’ those on the west side,’Fore’.

This account shows how the sensual verve and spirited amiability of exploratory Fore boys could unite quite different peoples. From an accidental meeting began a merging of ‘Awa’ with ‘Fore’ that was later clearly seen in blood-gene distributions. The event demonstrates how the Fore huntergatherer-gardeners made friends, how they segmented and recombined, and how dialect chains emerged between different language families.

I. INTRODUCTION

When my father came home from a seven-month Gulf War cruise in 1991, he told me about his participation in a bizarre ceremony when his ship crossed the equator. He talked of men receiving unusual haircuts, being paddled and insulted, being smeared with garbage and old food, and, most curiously, of a number of the men on the ship dressing up as women for a beauty pageant. He showed me photographs of men covered from head to toe in filth and being beaten with pieces of fire hose, and other pictures of men flashing massive false breasts to a crowd. As intrigued as I was, I was not surprised at the content of the ceremony. Having grown up a Navy brat, living near or in large Navy communities my entire life, I had grown used to the antics of Naval personnel. I had no problem picturing many of the Navy sailors and officers whom I knew participating in and laughing at the abuse and delighting in the garbage. And despite, or perhaps because of, many of the men's beliefs that women and homosexuals had no place in the Navy, I was not at all surprised at their amusement and willingness to participate in the transvestite pageant. Inexplicably, it just seemed to fit.

Yet, considering the accusations of homophobia, sexism, and sexual harassment that have arisen over the past twenty years, how and why would these same men would willingly submit to being spanked and straddled by other men? What was so important about this ceremony that would make sailors shave their legs and don false breasts and teddies? More importantly, why did I automatically interpret these actions as being normal for this group of people?

The Navy's resistance to women in its ranks is second only to its resistance to homosexuals. Until 1991, women were denied the opportunity to fly fighter jets in the Navy, and only within the past few decades have women been able to sail on ships previously staffed only by men. (1) Where other militaries have found ways to accommodate women and homosexuals in their ranks, it has been a slow and violent process in the U.S. (2) There seems to be no strong logical argument behind the extreme reluctance of the Navy to permit women equal rights, or to permit homosexuals any rights at all. (3) As one gay comedian stated in response to military concerns over the ability of gays to serve, "... what does the military think? That the gays are so sexual that they can't be trusted? What? In the heat of battle they're going to want to have sex with the enemy? `I couldn't shoot him, captain--he was gorgeous!' I don't think so." (4)

In examining the Crossing the Line (or "Shellback") ceremony, it becomes more apparent how intimately these issues are interwoven in the ritual. Through ritual play, ideas about gender, sexuality, and power are acted out. Although this is only one ritual, and one that not all Navy personnel participate in, it does offer one view into how political issues in the Navy are played out and resolved.

A. The Great Fraternal Order of the Raging Main

The Navy ceremony of "Crossing the Line" is a tradition which originated over four hundred years ago, and which continues in strong form today. (5) It is a vivid and unexpectedly sanctioned Naval event in which the uninitiated Naval personnel who have never crossed the equator pass through a series of tests which induct them into the realm of the initiated. It is a brutal and sometimes dangerous transformation. Members are beaten, yelled at, covered in garbage and filth, and made to perform denigrating tasks. Yet the ceremony not only continues, but is fiercely defended by many of its participants, including all the Navy members whom I interviewed.

What is so fascinating about the ritual is the power that it wields. This power comes in several forms. Internally, the drama of the ceremony aids in the manifestation and affirmation of deeply rooted beliefs about gender roles, sex and domination. The drama itself contains much power, as the brutality, beatings and humiliation are not only permitted, but encouraged as tools of transformation. Finally, the ceremony itself is of such importance that men in the stringently hierarchical Navy would deliberately disobey orders in order to ensure its continuance. (6)

The ceremony is complex and varied enough to be considered a ritual. There are two groups of participants, the initiated and the uninitiated. The two groups are distinctly characterized, placed in opposition to demonstrate the difference between the undesirable qualities of the uninitiated and the desired qualities of the initiated. The uninitiated are physically and psychologically tested by the initiates until they are proven acceptable. Throughout the ritual, the initiated take the male position and the uninitiated take the female position. As uninitiated become initiated, they assume a masculine identity that is defined in relation to the feminine characters which they just portrayed. At the end, all participants embody the particular positive, male qualities of the initiated and become members of the "Great Fraternal Order of the Raging Main," under the great leader, King Neptune.

B. The Players

The two groups of participants in the ceremony are the "shellbacks," who have been initiated into the Great Fraternal Order of the Raging Main, and the "pollywogs," who are uninitiated. The uninitiated name can be spelled either "pollywog" or "polliwog," or shortened to "wog." All three names are used interchangeably in the ceremony and in this text. The image associated with shellbacks is that of a turtle, while the meaning of pollywog is that of an infant frog, before metamorphosis.

Women's roles, both as characters and as participants, are important in the ritual. As characters, they work in the ceremony to illustrate ideas about women's social positioning in relation to each other and to men. As participants, women break the previous all-male discussion of gender. In this sense, a comparison of the ritual with and without the presence of women is revealing of how the men in the ceremony understand gender, and how they are forced to change that understanding when women are present.

As more women are introduced to this ritual, the meaning and form of the ceremony continue to change. The U.S. Navy is a male-dominated organization, and, until recently, women were not permitted to serve on ships or submarines. The first exceptions to this ruling were small ships called "tenders," which tended the needs of larger ships such as battleships or carriers. These ships are responsible for repairing and supplying the larger ships or submarines. Three cruise books of one of these ships, the USS Samuel Gompers, were reviewed and compared to other, entirely male-staffed ships and the differences and similarities are discussed later in this note. (7) Because of the rarity of female-staffed ships, however, the ritual is reviewed and analyzed in the context of an all-male setting. Historical and contemporary issues of women's participation in this ritual will be addressed, but until recently they have played a minor role in this ceremony. As the dynamics of the Navy change, with more and more women serving on larger ships as seamen, officers and pilots, the ceremony will no doubt change with it.

C. Organization

Part II of this note establishes the background of the crossing the equator ceremony. It will discuss the origins, development, and meaning of the European ritual as it grew over four centuries. Part III will examine the current day ritual, outlining the passage of the pollywogs from days before the crossing until they receive their shellback certificates. Part IV will follow the pollywog through the ritual process. The life, death and rebirth of the pollywogs as shellbacks will be discussed within the ritual, along with the impact this transition has on the participants' understanding of relations of gender and sexuality. Parts V and VI will delve more deeply into these relations, with the former examining the ritual's understanding of women and of male/female relationships, and the latter examining the ritual's understanding of homosexuality and of heterosexual/homosexual relationships. Part VII will view the ritual in its entirety, and will examine masculine identity in the ritual and in the Navy.

Much of the contestation over women and gays in the military stems from the understandings of gender and sex that exist in the military today and that are expressed through the ceremony. This note attempts to examine how ideas of gender, sexuality, hierarchy and power are played out in the ceremony, and to explore how these ideas impact the development of military legal policy.

II. THE HISTORY OF "CROSSING THE LINE"

The first documented ceremonies at the equator were found in accounts of journeys of French ships in the early sixteenth century. The expansion of trade routes and the funding of exploration of foreign lands at that time allowed European vessels to regularly cross the equator. Regular crossings of the equator, a location marked as "0" degrees latitude and conceptualized as the dividing line between north and south, set the stage for the development of a rite of passage. (8) Shortly after a regular route across the equator was established, various accounts of ceremonies at the line began appearing. (9) These early ceremonies were comprised chiefly of two parts: a religious ceremony of thanksgiving for having passed a certain point, and an initiation (baptism) symbolizing the passing from one stage to the next. (10) By the mid-sixteenth century, sailors had begun to regard it as an ancient right that they baptize those who had not been over the equator before, and they did so by blacking themselves and dressing up in costumes. (11) The equator initiation ceremony soon spread to other European ships and quickly became more complex in form.

To the Europeans of this era, crossing the equator literally inverted their world. The equatorial line was present on world maps before the time of the first accounts of the ceremony, and there were many superstitions about the world and people below the line. It is especially interesting to note that a popular belief at the time was that "anyone of another race who crossed the equator would become a Negro." (12) Hints of this belief can be seen in the use of black-faced police characters who controlled the movements of the uninitiated, in the placing of "Negroes" in positions of power, and in the application of shaving substances so that the man's face was half white and half black. (13) This clearly illustrates the position of the man on the line of inversion.

Although the ritual's purposes are difficult to ascertain because of lack of first-hand information, one can picture the ritual as a testing of new or young shipmates. The crew had only each other to rely on for months at a time. Thus it became absolutely necessary to be able to depend on one's shipmates. The ritual could therefore be viewed as not only the testing of inexperienced shipmates, but also as the remaking of the crewmember in the ship's image. The uninitiated (greenhorns) were literally and figuratively put on trial - literally in the ceremony with a mock trial, and figuratively because the ritual tried the strength and character of the inexperienced. The greenhorn then effectively gave his body over to the initiated to be recreated. Different ceremony characters performed numerous invasive "operations" to heal and "clean" the greenhorn, and to bring the greenhorn back to a newborn state: shaven and covered in blood. Afterwards, the greenhorn was baptized and was given a new name or a password. Thus, the ritual produced a man who had stood trial, passed the tests, and emerged as a new man and as part of the brotherhood of the crew.

Although the first accounts described a fairly simple ceremony, usually involving dunking new crew members and feasting afterward, the British, and later American, Crossing the Line rituals developed into complex rituals. As the social context changed, so did the shape of the ritual, and so did its meaning.

III. PIECING THE RITUAL TOGETHER

The most striking thing about the Crossing the Equator ceremony, as it has been performed over the past 30 years, is a fluidity of style around a distinctive infrastructure. When piecing together the ritual today, it is difficult to find one format that all ceremonies follow exactly. Traces of the historical rituals appear in much of the current ritual, but they have metamorphosed into a form which is meaningful to the contemporary participants.

A. Setting Up the Crossing

For several days or even weeks before the ceremony, menacing cartoons and flyers are posted around the ship by shellbacks. Some of the flyers are targeted at specific people (usually chiefs or officers), but many address pollywogs in general. (14) Shellbacks assail pollywogs with threats and stories of past horrors, attempting to create a feeling of dread for the next day's proceedings.

The day before the ceremony is marked by two major events: Davy Jones' visit and the wog queen ceremony. Davy Jones is a character whose origins are unclear, but who in the eighteenth century was believed to be an evil spirit of the sea. His first name is thought to be a corruption of "duffy" or "duppy," West Indian words for devil, and his last name is thought to be derived from the biblical character Jonah, who was swallowed alive by a whale and who symbolizes death and misfortune. (15) "Davy Jones Locker" is a sailor's term for the depths of the sea--a repository for drowned sailors. (16) In this situation, he works under orders from King Neptune and delivers announcements which are necessary in setting up the ritual.

In a small ceremony, Davy Jones (a disguised shellback) "arrives" on the ship to warn the captain "that he [is] trespassing into the Royal Domain" with slimy pollywogs aboard. (17) Accompanied by a small entourage, Davy reads a formal message from Neptune regarding his impending visit and then outlines what must be done to prepare for it. On behalf of King Neptune, he outlines special watches and dress codes for both shellbacks and pollywogs. The watches are absurd creations such as Coriolis Swirl watch, Bow watch, or Chief of the Smoke watch, the purpose of which was to "make sure that the ship does not make smoke in excessive quantities which might offend King Neptune." (18) There are always, of course, special lookout watches for the "Line." The men on duty for these watches must wear bizarre outfits and are often equipped with silly instruments, such as binoculars made of two rolls of toilet paper, and have to follow strict rules of conduct.

The subpoenas that were delivered to the pollywogs are also farcical in nature. Filled with ridiculous accusations and insults, they are often printed as formal certificates. Any sailor who does not have a shellback card receives a subpoena, regardless of rank. The following are sample pollywog subpoenas from the USS America crossing in 1968 and the USS Bainbridge crossing in 1980:

In the highest court of the raging main, the domain of Imperium Neptuni Regis sends greetings to all slimy pollywogs. You are commanded to appear before the royal court on April 24, 1968. A complaint has been filed with the government of the domain of Imperium Neptuni Regis, state of the Raging Main, against you. You are charged with the heinous crimes of brown baggery, mopery, doping off, chit requesting, apple polishing, sympathy seeking, gun decking, procrastination, gold bricking, liberty hounding, and reveille neglecting. You have conspired to enter the royal domain without visa, passport, or proper authority. Davy Jones, Royal Scribe. (19) Here ye, here ye! It has been brought to his royal highness, Neptunus Rex, through his trusty shellbacks, that certain of ye boxcar tourists and park bench sitters, hay makers and other landlubbers attached to the good ship and soon to enter my domain, are treating his royal highness with contempt, and are committing acts of insurrection and sedition. Know ye, and take dire notice accordingly that such words and such acts meet with his royal majesty's profound displeasure and will be punished by eternal pickling or such other torment as this royal highness may deem appropriate. The beginnings ... a message from the royal scribe, Davy Jones. (20)

Each shellback, to prove that he is truly a shellback, and not a pollywog in disguise, must present his shellback card, which is received, with a certificate, at the end of the ceremony. In several unfortunate cases, a shellback has lost or forgotten his shellback card, and so must go through the ceremony all over again.

Before, during and after Davy Jones' visit, harassment of pollywogs continues in many forms. Pollywogs are often dressed as dogs, with eyes and noses blackened, leashes and dog collars attached, and signs worn which attest to their status. There is even a "wog dog auction" to raise money for events or causes. Shellbacks may purchase or select wog dogs and order them to crawl on hands and knees, bark, and attack or hump other wog dogs. (21) One account describes it as such:

[W]e always had--we called them wog dogs. When you're a shellback you can pick one or two wogs as your personal wogs; you put them on a leash and run them around the ship. And I had this guy.... I often had him screwing or getting screwed by other wogs.... (22)

Other wogs can be seen in photographs as sweeping or cleaning the ship while tied to a leash, or shining the shoes of a shellback. (23) There are also accounts of pollywogs receiving unfortunate haircuts, pollywogs being painted like "Indians on the warpath," and groups of pollywogs being made to sing songs or recite prayers. Certain pollywogs are given strange tasks such as aboard the USS Cutlass, a U.S. submarine:

During all this, three pollywogs were disturbing the peace, on orders. One of them ran through the boat carrying a beer tray and an ash tray and yelling 'I'm a trash can,' another following close behind with a bell and announcing that he was a fire engine; while the third paraded with an inflated `safety,' yelling at the top of his lungs, `I'm a prophylactic!' (24)

In many accounts, shellbacks stand by, armed with paddles or pieces of fire hose, to punish pollywogs who do not do exactly as they are told. If hungry, the wogs are allowed to eat food off the deck or are served supper in a trough from which they must eat without silverware and often without hands. The latter tactic is also used for wog breakfasts on the day of the ceremony.

A "pollywog prayer" was mentioned in several cruise books and sources as a plea to God (or King Neptune) for support during the upcoming initiation ceremony. Oftentimes, pollywogs are forced to memorize the prayer and to recite it early in the morning of the day of the ceremony. Some appeal to King Neptune for forgiveness:

Oh King Neptune. As we lowly pollywogs gather this morning we pray that today you will have mercy upon our poor souls and very weak bodies and minds. Please, Oh King, forgive us our many trespasses as we forgive shellbacks who trespass against us. Guide us through the night and keep us from going into passageways and by-paths of the unknown. Please, Oh, King, forgive us our landlubberly sins and we shall follow you and your loyal subjects. (25)

Still others are written in response to the shellbacks' threats, and appeal to the Christian God, who is presumably not a shellback.

Our Father, who is not a shellback, please look over us "wogs" through this upcoming humiliation and torturous initiation. Forgive the shellbacks, our Father, for they know well what they are about to do. As we enter the land of Neptunus Rex, may your "anti-shellback presence" be with us and guide us with dignity to endure the tortures of flogging, volleys of garbage and pools of foul seaweed. Let us fear no shellback, knowing you truly rule the equator. (26) Great God in heaven, you are our life, our strength, and our joy--an ever-present helper and defender. Look with loving mercy upon this ship. Guide us into a better knowledge of your will and of the beauty of your holiness. May your servants of this great navy, and especially upon this ship, make choices of spiritual integrity and show forth the spirit of him who gave himself for the world, Jesus Christ, your son, amen. Oh, and one more thing, Lord: hold back your wrath from the despicable shellbacks and have pity on their sad estate. With their lice-infested bodies, perverted and fermented minds, their unintelligible language, repulsive habits and otherwise rebellious spirit, they are indeed at the nadir of life, yeah in its darkest shadows. Forsake not the selfish shellback, but have mercy on them for they know not what they do. (27)

The latter two examples are also part of the "pollywog uprising," a part of the ceremony which is found in numerous instances.

B. The Pollywogs' Revenge

The "pollywog uprising" is a sometimes-successful attempt by the pollywogs temporarily to refute the authority of the shellbacks. If successful, the pollywogs capture hapless shellbacks for a short period of time and perform the same initiation procedures as will be performed the next day by the shellbacks. Sometimes the uprising is merely a subversive tactic, such as a pollywog chef serving old pork disguised as breaded veal to shellbacks while reserving the veal for the pollywogs. (28) Other times it is much more violent, involving the capture and humiliation of shellbacks. Shellbacks are sentenced to

... dance ring around the rosy; [are] lashed to the rail and wet down; dance, sing and tell sea stories; run a paddle-wheel gauntlet and be dumped into a pool; be lashed to the deck or to stretchers; be given an egg shampoo; give an exhibition of trucking; furnish sandwiches to the pollywog court. (29)

Still other attempts aim at undermining the shellbacks' plans for the next day by putting pepper into vents leading into shellbacks' quarters or by trying to destroy initiation equipment. (30) A fairly universal trait of the uprising is the creation of and attempted flying of the pollywog flag. There are also poems and songs written by pollywogs that threaten King Neptune and declare the supremacy of pollywogs. (31) The uprising is ultimately futile because it never succeeds in overturning the next day's events, but it is nearly always attempted. Regardless of the measure of its success in being carried out (sometimes shellback spies discover the uprising plans and stop them before their fruition), whoever is discovered to be directly involved in the operation is given twice the harassment the next day.

C. Wog Queen Pageant

Another event that is crucial to the ceremony and which often occurs the day before the crossing of the equator is the "wog queen pageant." It is ordained by Davy Jones that the best looking pollywog shall be crowned "wog queen" and may sit on King Neptune's court--the only wog with that privilege. In this pageant, a group of pollywogs, usually consisting of a pollywog from each department, is selected to participate in a fashion and talent show for the shellbacks. These male pollywogs dress as women and perform seductive or funny dances, songs or acts. (32) The wog who is crowned queen is the one who most convincingly portrays a woman. Photographs of these men show a range of portrayals, wearing everything from see-through lingerie with long blond wigs and spike heels to classy dresses and sophisticated wig styles to short skirts and ridiculously massive plastic breasts. (33) Almost all of the men wear large fake breasts, makeup and high heels. An interesting twist that occurs on some ships staffed with significant numbers of women is dual cross-dressing, where men and women are paired up and must dress in clothes of the other sex. Davy Jones' orders in this case are quoted in a cruise book:

`For you must...