Earrings

[Salty Dog]

Earrings
The excellent late nineteenth century paintings by artists such as Howard Pyle and N.C. Wyeth show many pirates sporting gold rings in their ears, and one question frequently asked is why pirates wore earrings. A number of theories are put forward, all seemingly backed up by evidence which the theorists claim is irrefutable. Earrings were perhaps worn in case a man was lost overboard, then whoever found his washed up body could use the gold to pay for a decent funeral, or perhaps if a pirate was killed at sea his earring would be taken by the ship's cooper in payment for making a barrel in which to transport home his body for burial. Possibly pirates knew that the ear can be an acupuncture point, both for improved eye sight and to relieve sea-sickness. On the other hand maybe earrings were worn as a symbol of having achieved some great feat, such as a circumnavigation of the globe, or a crossing of the Equator. If pirates did indeed wear earrings at all the simplest and perhaps most likely explanation is that earrings were a fashion statement, just as they were before the Golden Age of piracy and just as they have been since.

[Salty Dog]

I say "if" pirates wore earrings because there is very little evidence to suggest that they were ever as popular as romantic nineteenth century artists would have us believe. At the turn of the eighteenth century earrings were not as fashionable amongst men as they had been fifty or a hundred years previously, neither on land or at sea, so there is no real reason why pirates should have worn earrings. Amongst the wills of seamen of the period we often read of gold rings, gold or silver buttons and buckles, but not of earrings. Further, one eminent pirate scholar, after much searching was able to find one single solitary example of a pirate possessing an earring, and that was listed not amongst his apparel but amongst his possessions with a large amount of other jewellery, suggesting that it was not worn. Earrings appear to be so rare that one seamen on an English warship slightly later than the Golden Age of piracy was genuinely asked by his captain whether he was a woman or not, because he was wearing an earring.