Just once so often during the upbuilding of our modern navy there is agitation anent the particular form that the launching ceremony should take; and the special rock upon which there is a split is over the use of wine or water. There are some good souls intensely insistent, in the name of temperance, that water shall be spilled upon the vessel's bow at the time of naming, while there are others, probably unconsciously subscribing more closely to tradition, who urge with equal vim that wine shall be the element in the baptismal ceremony. Both of these partisans are more or less right, but all of them have commonly lost sight of the derivation and the real significance of the performance. The whole question is primarily a religious one, while the popular attitude to-day is one of tolerance toward a surviving superstition.
From the very beginning of primitive man's venture upon the water—perhaps because of the frail character of his craft, he recognized the risks he ran and in his superstitious awe sought the protection of the hidden powers that ruled the wind and the waves. Through all the devious paths of developing religions, early man strove to placate opposing deities and to propitiate the favoring gods who, to him, became more or less personal. As his religion became more concrete his gods took the material shape of idols, and that they might be always with him he first fashioned some part of his vessel more or less after the manner in which he pictured them, and never launched his craft until after he had made tribute by word or act to his protecting deity. Later on, his idols ceased to be the grotesque semblance of animals and demons and became benignant and human-like, and for these he made a special place within his vessel and sanctified that place of keeping.
It is quite impossible to follow chronologically the evolution of the launching ceremony, but enough can be found here and there to point to a reasonable sequence, and for a probable survival of the most ancient practices we must naturally turn to the customs still remaining among primitive peoples. Ellis, in his "Polynesian Researches" tells us that the Samoans and the Fijians used to make human sacrifices to their shark deities who ruled the waters. In Tahiti, it was the custom to shed human blood when a new canoe was built or launched. Again, Mariner, in "Tonga," tells us that men were sometimes sacrificed in order to wash a new canoe's deck with blood, and that it was likewise the practice to use men as living rollers on which to launch the craft. In this there is a strange likeness to the ancient Norse habit of attaching human victims to the rollers upon which they launched their ships; and in the Eddas this ceremony is referred to under the name of "hlun-rod " or roller-reddening. Among the Tonga islanders it is the custom to-day still to offer kava and oil to the sea gods, and in all of these ceremonies the native priest plays a conspicuous part if the ancient rites prevail. These votive offerings or oblations are still made among the primitive peoples of many parts of the world, and in this particular they show the persistent permanence with which such practices are handed down from the ages past.
So far as actual records go, the earliest account of a votive offering to the gods upon the completion of a ship dates back twenty-one hundred years before Christ, and it seems that even then man dared not venture upon the sea until he had thus propitiated the gods. On an Assyrian tablet, found some years ago by Professor Schiel, we have a Babylonian account of the Deluge and of the building of the Ark, and of the religious ceremony at its completion: Rendered into English, the story reads, in part, as follows:
Eighthly, its interior I examined.
Openings to the water I stopped;
I searched for cracks and the wanting parts I fixed;
Three sari of bitumen I poured over the outside;
Three sari of bitumen I poured over the interior;
Three sari of men bearers who carried chests on their heads.
I kept a saros of chests for my people to eat.
Two sari of chests I divided among the boatmen.
To the gods I caused oxen to be sacrificed.
To the Chinese belongs the palm for pioneer work in breasting the tempestuous sea and in carrying their explorations into far lands—their commerce reaching at a very remote period as far west as the Persian Gulf. Probably no existing country has held with more faithfulness of detail to its ancient religious practices in most of their forms. In "A Discourse of the Navigation of the Portuguese," translated into English in 1579, is found this fairly full account of the Chinese practices at the launching of their ships: "When they launched their ships into the sea at the first making, the priests go apparelled with long garments, being very rich of silk, to make their sacrifices in the poops of them, where the place of prayer is, and they offered painted figures, and they cut and burned them before their idols with certain ceremonies that they make, and sing songs with an unorderly tone, sounding certain little bells. They worship the devil, where they have him painted in the fore-part of the ship, because, as they say, he should do no hurt to the ships. In all this discourse they are eating and drinking at discretion."
Among the Chinese these ceremonies have since undergone no substantial change, and in every large junk there is a shrine in honor of the goddess Tien-how, who is the tutelary deity of sailors. In addition to the goddess Tien-how, the Chinese sailors particularly engaged in the river traffic are devotees of the goddess Loong-moo or the Dragon's Mother. In honor of this latter deity the master of every river junk makes tribute at the beginning of a voyage. Prior to weighing anchor, he takes his place at the bow which, agreeably to Chinese tradition is the most sacred part of the ship, and there proceeds to propitiate the Dragon Mother. Before him on a small temporary altar are placed three cups containing Chinese wine or "saki." With a live fowl in one hand, the master performs the Kow-tow, and raising the cups one after the other from the altar he elevates them above his head before emptying them upon the deck by way of a libation. Next he cuts the throat of the fowl with a sharp knife and sprinkles the deck immediately about him with the blood of the sacrifice. One of the crew now presents the master with several pieces of silver paper, which in turn are sprinkled with the sacrificial blood and then fastened to the door-posts and lintels of the captain's cabin. This is suggestively like one of the rites of the Jewish Passover.
The Bible tells us of the glories of the fleets of Tyre, and history records as well much of the religious pomp and ceremony associated with the ships of ancient Egypt. The mythology of ancient Egypt is full of the part played by its deities in watching over its hardy mariners, and there can be no doubt whatever that some form of priestly ceremony and blessing was a part of the launching of the ships of the state at least, if the records of Du Sein and other historians are to be trusted. At the battle of Salamis, the Greeks went into the fight just after the conclusion of religious ceremonies, which consisted of sacrifices offered to all the gods and the pouring of a special libation to Zeus, the Protector and to Poseidon, Ruler of the Seas. In those days, it was the common custom among the Greeks to name their vessels after goddesses, and as a further propitiation the launching was made the occasion of a religious ceremony which Virgil described as follows:
Ipse caput tonsae foliis evinctus olivae,
Stans procul in prova, pateram, extaque salsos
Porricit in fluctus, ac vina liquentia fundit.—ÆNEID.
Here we see the part that wine played in the early days. Appian also described the religious aspect of the blessing of the ancient ships: "On the shores of 'the sea altars were erected where their bases might be washed by the waves. In a semi-circle the ships of the fleet were drawn about near by, their crews the while maintaining a profound silence. The priests in boats rowed three times round the fleet . . . . adding prayers to the gods that ill-luck should not befall the vessels. Then returning to the shore, they immolated bulls or calves, the blood of which reddened the sea and the shore."
The use of water in the ancient ritual dates back to the Greek ceremony of lustration and to the later Roman practice of using water not only as a token of purification but also as an element in the act of priestly blessing. Here we have the pre-Christian practice of baptism. Like other pagan customs, wine and water were given place in Christian ceremonials, but not infrequently with a modified or deeper meaning. It was thus that wine and water became elements of the sacrament of the Christian Church, while water alone remained the token of purification and a part of the blessing at the time a person was brought into the church, named, and placed under the protection of a particular patron saint.
During the Middle Ages. religious zeal and its derivative superstitions led to the custom of naming ships after saints, as the more ancient craft had been named after pagan gods and goddesses; and this practice was carried to the extremity of saintly image-worship—no craft being sent to sea without its shrine and an imposing array of attendant images. Thus began the practice that subsequently led to the evolution of the figurehead and the effigies placed in the niches about the stern galleries of more modern vessels. Guerin, in his history of the French Navy, tells us that the ships of Louis IX, when he sailed for the Holy Land in 1248, were provided with every facility for conducting mass, each ship having an altar and a priestly retinue. These altars were situated in the after part of the ships—just as the Greeks and Romans reared their shrines there in their own days, and the index of the antiquity of the practice survives in the name of the "poop" deck—the highest aftermost deck of the older type of modern vessels. This name is derived from the Latin term "puppis," which was the name the ancients gave to the honored after deck where they kept their "pup " or doll-like images of their tutelary deities and where they offered before them libations and sacrifices.
As Taylor has told us in his "Primitive Customs," "Some religious ceremonies are marvels of permanence, holding substantially the same form and meaning through age after age, and far beyond the range of historic record." In proof of this, remembering what has been recorded of ancient Greece, it is instructive to know that at the launching of a modern Greek vessel her bow is decorated with flowers, and at the instant the ship takes the water her captain raises a jar of wine to his lips and then empties the rest of it upon the deck of his craft. Among the Turks, the launching of a vessel is of religious significance, and a priest attends asking the blessing of Allah and praying that the ship may have a prosperous and a successful career and ride safely over the waves in all weather. Sheep are sacrificed just as the vessel starts for the water, and the flesh is subsequently given to the poor. No wine is spilt upon the vessel's bow, but a feast is afterwards given to the participating officials and the invited guests.
In Russia, when a naval vessel is launched, the Greek Church participates in a very imposing manner. The service includes the blessing of the ship in detail—the officiating priest and his attendant acolytes and choristers marching through all the decks, burning incense, carrying lighted candles, and sprinkling the craft everywhere with holy water—all the while prayers are read and chants are sung. When the ship has thus been blessed the crew are assembled before an altar especially reared for the occasion within the vessel, and, after the craft's colors are blessed, each member steps forward to the altar, kisses the priests hand, and receives the benediction of the church. This carries us back directly to the practice among the Egyptians of purifying their ships by lighted torches, of burning sulphur, and of the breaking of eggs by the priests within their vessels, and later to the very similar custom among the Greeks leading to what generally became known as "the purification of the ship." Combined with the subsequent libations, we see in the present ceremony of the Greek Church a survival of the ancient practice which had for its purpose the driving out of evil spirits, the purifying of the body, the propitiation of the deities, and the beginning of a new life. In Russia, to-day, wine does not enter into the ritual of the church at the launching of ships, the breaking of a bottle of wine at the actual naming of the vessel being a secular performance entirely apart from ecclesiastical participation. In this we see the reflex of the practice among other nations introduced into Russia only within the recent period of her advent upon the sea.
During the days of Venetian dominance upon the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, the church took a conspicuous part in the launching functions of all official craft. It was then the custom to espouse the Adriatic at the time of the floating of the vessel, and this was done with much significant pomp, the ceremony closing by the Doge or some other high official throwing a bridal ring into the sea. In the Museum at Venice to-day there are a number of these rings, and in recognition of that old custom a pretty revival of it was practiced at the launching of the submarines recently built for the Italian Government.
In 1488, when the Sovereign was launched at Humble—England's foremost dockyard of medieval times, in the presence of Henry VII, we are told the ship was formally renamed and the renovated vessel blessed with all the ceremonial display customary in England in pre-Reformation times—" A mitred prelate with attendant train of priests and choristers, crozier in hand, with candle, book, and bell, and holy water stoup" performing the benediction. With the coming of the Reformation under Henry VIII, the official participation of the Church of Rome disappeared in England upon such occasions. The same, too, is true of Protestant Europe during the same period, although we are told the Lutherans practiced a baptismal ceremony at the launching of their vessels while they attach no importance to the observance. In the early part of the sevententh century, in England, the launching of government vessels was entirely devoid of religious significance so far as the church was concerned, and what did survive of ancient custom was more strictly a remnant of the faraway pagan libation. The ship Prince Royal was launched at Woolwich in 1610, and the launching function was performed by Prince Henry in the manner described as follows by Phineas Pette, one of the master shipwrights of James I: "The noble Prince, himself, accompanied with the Lord Admiral and the great lords, were on the poop, where the standing great gilt cup was ready filled with wine to name the ship so soon as she had been afloat, according to ancient custom and ceremony performed at such times, and heaving the standing cup overboard. His Highness then standing upon the poop with a selected company only, besides the trumpeters, with a great deal of expression of princely joy, and with the ceremony of drinking in the standing cup, threw all the wine forwards towards the half-deck, and solemnly calling her by the name of the Prince Royal, the trumpets sounding the while, with many gracious words to me, gave the standing cup into my hands."
During the same century, in the Catholic parts of Europe, the Church of Rome still participated. In 1675, Henry Teonge, chaplain in the British Navy, visited Malta in His Majesty's Ship Assistance, where he witnessed the launching of a Maltese craft, which he describes in this manner: "This day we saw a greate deale of solemnity at the launching of a new bryganteen of 23 oares, built on the shoare, very neare the water. They hoysted 3 flaggs in her yesterday, and this day by 12 they had turned her head neare the water. When as a greate multitude of people gathered together, with severall of their knights and men of quality, and a clowd of fryars and churchmen. They were at least 2 howers in their benedictions, in the nature of hymns or anthems, and other their ceremonys ; their trumpetts and other music playing often. At last 2 fryars and an attendant went into her, and kneeling downe prayed halfe an howre, and layd their hands on every mast, and other places of the vessell, and sprinkled her all over with holy water. Then they came out and hoysted a pendent, to signify she was a man of warr; and then at once thrust her into the water." Malta was given to the Knights Hospitalers by the Catholic Emperor Charles V in 1530, and being an island and under its own particular government, we see that the ceremony had escaped the immediate influence of the Reformation.
In Catholic France in the eighteenth century and at the beginning of the nineteenth century, especially among the merchant craft and fishing vessels, the launching ceremony was closely analogous to the baptismal ritual at the time of christening an infant. The custom was one that lay close to the hearts of the common people, and the parish priest, a god-father and a god-mother chosen for the occasion were the principal participants—the god-parents not infrequently being children. The ceremony was very simple and lovely. The god-father carried a bouquet which he duly presented to the god-mother, and with this done, both sponsors then pronounced the name chosen for the new vessel, and the priest repeating it so declared the vessel named—finishing the ceremony with the sprinkling of holy water upon the bow of the boat and with a benediction. To-day, the official ceremony at the launching of naval vessels carries out in spirit this older practice save that there is more pomp and churchly parade. There is a god-father and also a god-mother. Should the ship be named after a national hero or a famous officer, one of the sponsors is generally a descendant. A priest high in the dignity of the church leads in the formalities accompanied by acolytes and choristers. He blesses not only the ship, herself, but also, in accordance with ancient custom, sprinkles holy water upon the launching ways and gives them the benediction of the church. No wine is spilled upon the ship's bow, but the distinguished guests are invited to what is termed a "vin d'honneur" where champagne flows freely and a bountiful repast is served. This is a very old custom that has existed for many centuries—especially among the fishermen of Europe, and to decline either the food or the drink then offered was formerly considered an omen of misfortune.
It was not until the early part of the nineteenth century that either a layman or a woman took any part in the official ceremony at the launching and naming of a British man-o'-war. Prior to that time, if the formalities were not conducted by a member of the royal family, the naming was done by some high functionary of the port or dockyard staff. The present Queen of England is said to have originated the religious service now a part of the launching of British ships of war; and the occasion when the practice was thus instituted was at the launching of the Alexandria—named after her—in 1875. Since then a full choral service has been prescribed, which includes extracts from the I07th Psalm—beginning with the twenty-third verse—together with a special prayer of great beauty. The benediction is in accordance with the ritual of the Church of England and therefore does not include the use of holy water. The civil ceremony which follows consists of the usual naming of the vessel by a fair sponsor after which a bottle of wine is smashed upon the vessel's bow. This blessing of a British ship carries us back by actual record of the fourteenth century, when in 1390, so the monk of St. Denys tells us, referring to the Duke of Bourbon's expedition to Genoa under the Earl of Derby, that "According to ancient custom and to ensure success, the ships were blessed by the priests"; and again, in July of 1418, the Bishop of Bangor was sent to Southampton to give a benediction to the King's ship lately built there—called the Grace Dieu, and was an occasion of much imposing ceremony: the worthy bishop being paid five pounds for his trouble. William Laird Clowes, in his history of "The Royal Navy," tells us that there is no trace in the British records of ship-baptism with wine in the fifteenth century.
In the latter part of the eighteenth century and during a considerable period in the first half of the nineteenth century, it was the custom in France to remove all impediments to the launching of their ships but a single beam or heavy timber which is commonly known among shipwrights as the "dog-shore." This beam was canted against the stern post of the vessel in such a manner as to keep her from voluntarily sliding toward the water, and when everything was in readiness this shore was chopped through and knocked out of the way. This task was hazardous in the extreme and a volunteer for the work was commonly chosen from among the convicts in the galleys. Clothed in red, this man would take his place between the launching ways and under the shadow of the juggernaut-like craft that towered ponderously above him. At the proper signal, he would begin to chop with his axe into the dog-shore, and if alert and quick enough he was able to drop into the pit dug for him before either this timber fell or the ship rushed down upon him crushing out life or fearfully wounding him. Not infrequently the man was killed and very often he was wounded and blood flowed, thus seeming to perpetuate the sacrificial offerings of the ancient Norsemen and the similar primitive practices among some of the South Sea Islanders. If the convict escaped with his life, freedom was the reward for his perilous undertaking.
In our own country, tradition does not carry us very far back so far as we are immediately concerned—our ceremonies naturally following the customs prevailing in England at the time our forebears landed here; and so far as the records examined go to show, there was no religious significance given to this function by us.
It has been said that water was used at the launching of the Constitution, in 1797; but if this be so, it was broken upon the bow of that ship at one or the other of the two unsuccessful efforts first made to get that vessel overboard. When the Constitution was finally launched at the third effort, the late Rear-Admiral George H. Preble tells us in his manuscript history of the Boston Navy Yard, that "Commodore James Sever stood at the heel of the bowsprit, and, according to time-honored usage, baptized the ship with a bottle of choice old Madeira, from the cellar of the Honorable Thomas Russell, a leading Boston merchant." No one can question the fighting merits of the Constitution, nor belittle that abundant glory that she reflected upon our flag in the days when every victory counted with especial weight. Let those that attach a superstitious value to either wine or water bear this fact in mind.
In 1858, the U. S. S. Hartford was launched at Boston, her launching sponsors being three in number. One was the daughter of Commodore Downes, one the daughter of Commodore Stringham, and the other was then Lieutenant George H. Preble of the navy. As she touched the water, Miss Stringham broke a bottle of Connecticut River water across the ship's figurehead, Miss Downes smashed a bottle of Hartford Spring water, and Lieutenant Preble concluded the formalities by emptying a bottle of sea water upon the vessel's bow. The particular significance of each bottle of water is too plain to call for explanation; and, again, the performances of the Hartford are too fresh to need present point. In each case, however, it is quite evident that neither the wine nor the water had anything to do with the fighting efficiencies and the enduring good fortune of those famous vessels. In the spirit of those ceremonies, the spilling of wine or water represented nothing more than unthinking tributes to tradition and a cheerful subscribing to superstition. Their sponsors were probably totally unmindful that they were indulging in parodies of ancient religious customs—born first in the pagan mind and subsequently dignified by adaptation on the part of the early Christian Church. The practice with us to-day of using either wine or water in secular hands is without significance or claim to serious consideration.
In the pride of our might and the power of the modern seagoing craft, we have lost the supplicating spirit of the seafarers of the past; and we have preserved in parody only a part of a heartsome appeal that even the heathen once made to his tutelary deities that the wind and the seas might be tempered to his frail craft, and with his oblation offered he found strength in that imagined protection and was able to face undaunted hardships of which we scarce can dream to-day.