COME ALL YOU TONGUERS
(Anon)

Come all you tongues and land-loving lubbers
Here’s a job cutting in and boiling down blubbers
A job for the youngster or old and ailing
The agent will grab any man for shore whaling

Chorus
I am paid in soap and sugar and rum
For cutting in whale and boiling down tongue
The agent’s fee makes my blood so to boil
I’ll push him in a hot pot of oil

Go hang the agent, the company too
They are makin’ a fortune off me and you
No chance of a passage from out of this place
And the price of livin’s a bloomin’ disgrace

Note in ‘Song of a Young Country’, p 9:

Shore-whalers live a gloriously comfortable life compared with the sealers. They were befriended by the Maori people who built homes for them, grew food for them and worked both at whaling, and at cutting in and boiling down the blubber. Most of them married Maori women, swore loyalty to their wives’ people and were honest and hard-working. A strong comradeship sprang up amongst them.

A few shore-whalers, however, became ‘candlelight fishermen’. ‘That means he got to turn out of bed in the mornin’ - he light the candle - if the flame blow out there’s too much wind for him to go - and if it don’t blow out then there ain’t enough - so he go back to bed again’ . Quote from Phil Hamond, Morston, Norfolk. Personal communication to N. Colquhoun.

Youtube clip

--Stewie.