FATHER PIERRE DAN ON ALGERIAN CORSAIRS – PART 3

(This post is a continuation of Father Pierre Dan on Algerian Corsairs – Part 2. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best to read that post before continuing on here.)

If, when caught in a tempest at sea, the corsairs realize that their sacrificing of sheep does not stop the storm, then they resort to another ceremony. They take two big earthenware jars full of olive oil, the best they have, and, after having sealed these jars well, they all fall to prayers. During their devotion, they sometimes raise their eyes and hands to Heaven. Mostly, though, they remain kneeling on the deck. They turn their heads towards the right, for that, they say, is where their good angel resides, whom they call to their rescue. They turn afterwards towards the left and blow into the surrounding air, where they believe that their evil angel is always abiding, as if by this ceremony they conjured him to retire, on the belief that there is no one who does not have at his side two different geniuses, one good and the other bad.

After all this, the ship’s scribe, as the most learned among them, and best versed in their superstitious Cabal, takes these two jugs of oil and throws them into the sea, one on the right side of the ship and the other of the left.

Aristotle says that there is nothing more capable of calming the angry waves than pouring out several barrels of oil, because this liquor retains the waves by its gentleness and natural viscosity. If such reasoning motivated the corsairs in this ceremony, they would not seal the oil jars so tightly. But they are so ignorant that they do not know that so small a quantity of oil cannot stop such a great storm.

It must be added here that they do not only use these sacrifices and ceremonies to render the sea calm during a storm. They also use them when they are becalmed and stranded at sea, unable to move forward or backward due to lack of wind.

If the corsairs see that neither their sheep sacrifices nor their offerings of jugs of oil have averted the storm, they practice a third ceremony, which is no less ridiculous than the others.

They light as many candles and torches as they can, so that there are sometimes as many as four or five hundred alight at one time. These they attach to their guns and allow them to burn out. Meanwhile, they all engage in prayer—with Turkish postures and antics capable of making the most melancholy laugh. While all this is being done, it is not permissible for anyone, under threat of very great punishment, to light another candle, or a tobacco pipe, or even a wick. And nobody is allowed to attend to natural necessities, in order not to defile, as they put it, such meritorious and holy action.

If, after all these sacrifices and vain ceremonies, it should happen that they have not obtained what they desire, the corsairs in desperation then command any Christian slaves they may have aboard their vessels to pray, according to their religion, to the virgin, to Saint Nicolas, or to some other Saint, holding it as indifferent to whom one addresses the prayer, provided that in one way or another they can be guaranteed that the danger which threatens them is removed—to such an extent are they afraid of the death, they who are so valiant & furious when they give it to others.

If they are out at sea for a long time without any success, the corsairs try to invite Heaven to aid them, and to make God himself a partisan of their crimes. And so they pray to their false prophet, so that they might meet with some rich ship containing a large quantity of booty.

As they know only too well that abominable and unnatural vices are common among them, they order that everyone should be cleansed by the ablutions that their prophet has commanded them in his Koran so that they may be washed clean of their sins. By means of these external ablutions, they hope that their wishes will be granted, and that they will make a good catch—as if it were true that God favored sinners, or that He is pleased by larceny, He who orders just and rigorous punishments against those who commit such acts.

For their cleansing ceremony, they strip themselves almost all naked, in summer or in winter, and pour several buckets of water over their heads and the rest of their bodies. Sometimes, they plunge themselves into the sea, or into rivers or fountains, making themselves believe that by this sort of washing they are purified, and that they thus receive a general abolition of all their crimes, all the while persuading themselves that neither contrition nor penance is necessary to erase the stains of their sins.

They also apply their superstitions to Christians. They heat a big nail until it is red hot. Then the scribe of the ship takes it up with pincers and draws a cross under the feet of everybody, Christians and Turks, uttering as he does so some words of the Alcoran. While doing this, he brings the nail so close to people’s skin that they feel the heat, but he does not burn anyone.

If anybody asks these corsairs, as I once did, why they make the sign of the cross under people’s feet, they answer that it is in derision. For their extreme impiety causes them to hate and despise our Lord, believing, by this action, to invite Heaven to their favor against Christians, whom they call the enemies of God.

The corsairs continually practice these sacrifices and ceremonies, but they only sometimes manage to capture their prey, for the effects of their superstitions are not at all certain.

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It is important to remember here that Father Dan was a Trinitarian friar. In his own rather extreme and severe way, he was a devout man, and he could not help but see Barbary corsairs as wicked infidels. So he is not by any means an objective witness. Most of the bare details he observes—the sacrificed sheep, the olive jars, the red-hot nail—are probably accurate enough. His understanding of such corsair practices, however, is warped by his own beliefs.

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For those who may be interested…

These details of corsair sacrifices and ceremonies come from Book 3, Chapters 6 & 7 of Father Pierre Dan’s Histoire de Barbarie.