COME ALL YOU TONGUERS

Come all you tonguers 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.

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.


In the late 1700s and early 1800s men were recruited in
New South Wales for shore whaling in New Zealand, with
promises of housing, food, drink and all the Maori women
they could handle. In reality the accommodation was almost
uninhabitable, the Maori didn't want to know, and food and
other supplies were so expensive the men would up "owing
their souls to the company store". Shore whaling was messy,
smelly and disgusting, essentially processing whale carcasses
for meat and oil.

@Australian @whaling
filename[ TONGUERS
MG
oct99
mudcat.org

---

PLEASE NOTE: Because of the volunteer nature of The Digital Tradition, it is difficult to ensure proper attribution and copyright information for every song included. Please assume that any song which lists a composer is copyrighted ©. You MUST aquire proper license before using these songs for ANY commercial purpose. If you have any additional information or corrections to the credit or copyright information included, please e-mail those additions or corrections to us (along with the song title as indexed) so that we can update the database as soon as possible. Thank You.