Informant Data:

Jose Sotelo is a 28 year old male who was born in Mexico City, Mexico and was raised in Riverside County, California. He joined the military at the age of 19. He joined the US Navy and deployed twice once in 2008/09 and once in 2010/11.

Contextual Data

The context of this right of passage is when you cross the equator on a ship in the navy you can become a shellback by completing the rite of passage. In the navy, ships sail all around the word and they like to celebrate individual accomplishments of sailors who go a long distance. It happens on a boat and starts at the bottom and they end up on the top.

Item:

The title “Shellback”

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript of Associated File:

“It’s when you’re on a naval vessel you go through a rite of passage day where they wake you up super early and you’re wearing your uniform inside out with pollywhag written all over your clothes and your uniform. They make you basically walk on your hands and knees from where you’re sleeping to the mess hall and you’re kinda just eating weird ass green eggs and just all types of random shit that they throw at you. From there they take you into the middle of the ship and they’re still kinda throwing criscoe sauce, butter, an egg or two thrown at me. And you get up to the top and they’re washing you down with high power fire hose type things. When you’re on top of navy boats a lot of them have airplanes that take off. They have these things called eye lids. For the planes. They’ll tell you blow the water out of the eyelids which is impossible cause they’re spraying with a fire hose. The whole point is you’re supposed to reach the CO. The CO will have one person dress as a mermaid and one dressed as Poseidon and you have to ask permission to cross the equator before you’re known as a shellback. ”

Informant’s Comments:

Getting to cross the equator was a big day in his life and the navy made it special with a rite of passage that allowed him to call himself a shellback.

Collector’s Comments:

This item also included a lot of military thing such as making them drink and “hazing” of sorts. It seems like the people who did it ended up having a lot of fun and are really glad they did.

Collector’s Name: Cole Cable

Tags/Keywords: Shellback / Polywhag / Sailor / Equator / Navy / Military / Rite of Passage