A Pirate’s Life for Me: Maritime Folkloric Practices as Religious Syncretism during the Golden Age of Piracy

Abstract: 

Historians and anthropologists analyze the accounts of folkloric practices in seafarers’ diaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a way to understand the prevailing cultural practices at sea. During this time period, historians note a political dichotomy between Christian and Muslim ships and crews as well as accounts from sailors of religiously mixed crews. These accounts describe a movement away from strict religious practice toward an amalgam of folkloric practices. Existing literature refers to this movement as an example of cultural syncretism rather than religious syncretism, which combines two religious systems to create a new system of religious beliefs and practices in which neophyte sailors are enculturated. This research analyzes academic discussions on the sharing of folklore and superstition, the presence of religious and spiritual talismans aboard ships, and the cultural and religious significance of those superstition and talismans to argue seafaring culture at the time was a confined and distinct religious practice. It will use the “spiritscape” (Agius, 2017) conceptual framework as a foundation for the argument of religious syncretism present aboard European and American ships during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Framing at-sea superstition as a religion shifts the perspective about sailors – including merchants, corsairs, and pirates – away from romantic and mythologic stories and toward a more realistic historical culture.