Ships were lost during these dark voyages, and said to have had a black band tied around one of the masts to mark their demise. "It is an old Norse custom to ring out the death knell of a crew member who has died by hanging," a crew member would write in the log of a fishing boat. "They call this the ‘Sailors' Shivaree’," he wrote. "It is a custom that has been carried from generation to generation ever since they started tying the noose in the masthead." Many of the Sailors' Shivaree ceremonies were carried out in the evening, with a funeral procession, when "shrouds" had been nailed over the deck that were decorated with lanterns. The tradition appears to have died out gradually throughout the 19th century, and was officially ended in 1890, but even today it continues to have an impact on the way modern-day sailors mark their ships' deaths. In the 1940s, the Coast Guard began to officially mark the ships that had been lost during the War, but kept the Shivaree tradition alive, and continued to keep tally of its incidents during World War II in a book called "Almanac." In one case in 1944, the crew of the L.E. Moffett sent out the shivaree even after the ship had been re-victualled, as it was out at sea, and unable to return to port, until it lost power. In the case of the Mary R, the Shivaree ceremony was held, according to a later account, "because there were so few survivors." Bodies of the crew were never found, so it's likely that they were lost at sea, and that the Mary R sank without any trace of them. The Mary R is also the only ship that has never been found in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The story of the Mary R would inspire a legend that would be repeated several years later off the coast of Cape Breton, in Nova Scotia, where the sinking of the Star of Italy would also have an effect on the way Canadians mark the passing of a ship. Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... The ship, originally registered as the S.S. Jura, sailed under false documents for the first half of the year, hiding its real destination, until two of its crew were spotted by the authorities in a Cape Breton fishing village. After several days of fruitless search, a manhunt was launched. The crew member’s shipmates suspected that they were heading back to America, and they turned them over to police. When the authorities learned the true identity of the Jura, the ship was seized, and the owner was charged with false registration and unlawful concealment of the identity of a ship. The ship and crew were impounded and ordered to sail back to San Francisco. The vessel made a brief appearance in Halifax Harbour, where the crew would perform the Shivaree. The ship left Halifax again on the last day of August, 1944, carrying the remaining crew and an additional 10 passengers, and sailed south out into the Atlantic. The Jura's captain, a Canadian who had been fishing in the Gulf, and later took a job with the shipping company, never returned home to Canada. Several crew members also did not return. In the days following the ship's departure, Halifax authorities were concerned that something might have happened to the Jura. "The general view is that the ship sank in the Gulf of St. Lawrence during a gale," a report said. "The exact circumstances, however, are not yet known," the report continued. "It is believed by the Halifax Coast Guard and other Canadian and American authorities that the ship has been lost in the Gulf of St. Lawrence." Two weeks later, it was announced that the Jura had been lost, and had found its way into one of the deepest parts of the Atlantic, its crew having drowned before they could send out the traditional signal of death that had been the end of the Sailor's Shivaree. Sailors' Shivaree In the centuries since the ritual was first employed, its origins have been shrouded in mystery. Although the first known sighting of the custom dates back to the late 1500s in France, the earliest record of its use off the coast of Canada dates to 1641. A 1609 record tells the story of a fisherman who had been cast overboard off the coast of France, and was miraculously saved. "He got rid of his clothes, and got a few other poor clothes he had, and he stood off from the land with some other poor men," the report said. "These people prayed and sang to God very devoutly, and he gave them thanks. He then went home to his parish of Harenc with God’s blessing and left behind him one thousand two hundred and forty souls drowned." The ship is a vessel without a crew of its own. It is the vessel of many men, a commonwealth of all. Hence the ship is the true representative of all people, and is therefore honored as a kind of altar, the altars being our bodies. In recent years, the origins of the Sailors’ Shivaree has been re-examined, with some even suggesting that it was derived from an Old Norse funeral in Viking Age Norway. But a 2010 archaeological investigation conducted by an expert on Norse culture, and published in a journal called "Archeological Dialogues" said that the practice was of much earlier vintage, dating back to ancient Europe during the Bronze Age. A Sailors' Shivaree ceremony in ancient Greece The Shivaree ceremony at sea began its evolution in the 18th century off the shores of France, when fishing crews began to mark the deaths of ships' crews in what they would then call "the Bay of Biscay." The ship's mast would be decorated with strings of lanterns, and after dark the crew would walk around the ship, with the lanterns lighting the way, and the sound of a trumpet announcing the death of another crew member. Many French sailors were buried at sea, their graves marked with no markers or plaques. "There are several accounts of their ships' Captains going ashore at night to talk about the loss of a comrade and the captain’s drinking the mate’s rum as he remembered him," one newspaper reported. One of the earliest mentions of the practice in Canada comes from a sailor, in 1743, who described a ceremony to mark the passing of another ship. "There being some of our own number lost, to the number of three, we run a flag up to the masthead, all lights were put out in the ship, a bottle of rum was brought down and placed in the middle of the table, and a man’s hat was placed on top of it to be given to any sailor on board who knew who was buried." The ritual was held for three hours, and each crew member took a turn in honouring the man who had died. Another account of the Sailors' Shivaree comes from a seaman on board the Barebone in 1806. "Upon the arrival of a fresh gale of wind, the ‘Old Man’ said, ‘I will now mark this ship’, ‘Then he went upon the poop, and took a piece of white chintz, cut it off, and tied the pieces together, put them around the mast, and hoisted a signal of three large lanterns on it, which hoisting away, they hoisted another signal with a lantern in the bows, and the signal of the Shrieker; and then all the stars they got out of the shrouds and stern, and the signal man, with three guns in his hand, gave three shots, with three more guns, they hoisted out one more, and the ship became a funeral ship, and the men stood on the deck crying and weeping." French sailors off the coast of Canada The Shivaree ceremony was also held by French sailors who had been lost during the War, with lanterns put on the rigging. One account written in 1916 on the fate of the Marie Celeste stated that at a ceremony the crew took part in, "A bottle of rum was broken in the centre of the deck. Black strips of ribbon, about two inches wide, were put in each canvass bag, and the men all tied them to the yards of the mizzen mast. Black bands, about three inches wide, were put on the top of the yards. To the top of each band was tied a bit of white string, and all the ends of the string were put into the rum bottle, which had been previously inverted. The bottle was solemnly buried in the centre of the ship, and a bottle of brandy was handed to each member of the crew." In some accounts, the bottle of rum and the ship's bell are buried at sea, and a bottle of brandy placed on the capstan is carried by the captain and his men around the ship, lighting lanterns that