Argh, me hearties! Here be me most favorite holiday again — Talk Like a Pirate Day. Shiver ye timbers and buckle ye swash ‚ me and me wench Claire have been lookin fore t’ it since last year. You can bet we’ll be out with our eyepatches and pulling the usual shenanigans tonight.
But I thought this year, I’d do something different and use this space to possibly correct some popular misconceptions about real pirates…. but before I get started, I should make a necessary public service announcement — even though this is a day to imitate a pirate, please do not pillage, steal or brawl. Now, let’s talk about real pirates lives….
Pirates didn’t bury their treasure — this is a huge part of the pirate myth. When a voyage was over all the loot would be divided among the crew immediately, and would usually quickly find its way into the pubs and brothels of the port they landed in. A lot of pirates wanted their share of the loot beforehand, and a pirate’s treasure wasn’t always gold or silver — a lot of it was food, lumber, cloth, and animal hides.
The skull and crossbones flag at the top of a pirate ship is called a Jolly Roger. This is one of those things in pirate history that’s gotten lost over the years — no one seems to really know the origin of the name. But there are a few theories…. the use of red flags centuries ago was a commonly used naval warfare signal that no mercy would be given, and anyone captured would be killed immediately. The French called these flags Joli Rogue (“pretty red’) — the theory is that this was then translated into English as Jolly Roger. Another theory is that Jolly Roger derived from “Old Roger,” a term for the Devil. Of course, not every ship used a Jolly Roger flag. Some pirates had their flags specially made by a sail-maker’s widow who took payment in brandy. Blackbeard (supposedly the most feared pirate of all) had his own black flag featuring a skeleton with horns. The skeleton held an hourglass in one hand, and in the other he carried a spear pointing to a heart dripping with three drops of blood.
Even though the Jolly Roger is probably the most famous, and well-known, pirate flag, it was mostly seen in the Caribbean at the time of the Spanish conquest, and was generally used to scare other ships into surrendering without a fight. Often pirate ships just used a plain black flag when sailing between ports.
Each pirate ship had its own set of rules and a code that all pirates on that ship had to agree to. Some of the rules included how the loot would be divided, who had what chores and what was expected of everyone. Surprisingly, one of the most common rules was no fighting onboard. If two pirates had a disagreement they’d have to wait, and fight on land.
Democracy ruled on pirate ships — every member of a pirate crew had a say in what happened on board the ship. The captain had total control during a battle at sea, but his power was nominal day to day. The quarter-master was top dog in terms of managing the other pirates for most of the time on board pirate ships.
The “official” pirate drink, or at least their drink of choice was Grog. Grog is a mixture of rum, water, lemon juice, and sugar — yum!
You see a lot of pictures of pirates wearing eye patches — they really did wear eye patches. One theory is that they wore the patches to help keep one eye adjusted for “night vision” to see better below deck.
As cool as it may sound, pirates almost never made people walk the plank — most pirates just killed people straightaway. When they did torture prisoners, it was usually through keelhauling (dragging a tied prisoner in the water from the back of the ship. Other popular tortures were marooning a person on a deserted island or lashing with a leather strap.
A lot, if not most, pirates wore earrings. There are a lot of theories about why, but the reason(s) were practical, not for decoration. Some pirates believed that the precious metals in earrings possessed magical healing powers and would improve or cure bad eyesight. Earrings were usually given to young sailors as a symbol of their first crossing of the equator and supposedly, their purpose was to protect the eardrums during battle. Another story is that pirates that fired the ships’ cannons during combat with the enemy, dangled wads of wax from their earrings to use as earplugs. But my favorite theory for earrings is that they covered the cost of burial. Earrings made of silver or gold would be worth enough to pay for a sailor’s funeral if his body washed ashore. Some pirates even engraved the name of their home port on the inside of the earrings so that their bodies could be sent to their families for a proper burial. If a pirate died on a ship, the earrings would help to cover the cost of transporting the body home so that he wouldn’t be buried at sea or on foreign soil.
As swashbuckling as the pirate’s reputations, they were usually more clever than daring. Pirates tried, when possible, to become involved in battle with only one ship at a time. A lot/most valuable ships traveled with protective convoys. The deterrent a convoy provided was usually effective — so much so that smaller un-protected ships would follow in the wake of larger convoys to benefit from the convoys protection.
As strange as it may seem, and even though there were women pirates, pirates were afraid of women. Women were considered very bad luck on board all seafaring vessels as they were thought to bring bad things down on the ship. It’s possible that they just caused fighting amongst the pirates on board.
And since everyone knows that guacamole (not really guacamole, but avocados) was discovered by pirates, I won’t even address that subject.
So we’ll be headin’ out for our annual rounds tonight, probably into the wee hours, knocking on doors in the neighborhood, yelling “arr scurvy dog, I be needin to sell a pint or two of grog.” That’s always one of the highlights of the day. No matter how you celebrate, Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!!!
— 30 —