Not sure if I've posted this on Mudcat before. Thinking of writing a paper some day, maybe for Mystic Sea Symposium. The topic: "Ole Aunt Jemima" possibly being a source for what would become "John Kanaka."

"Old Aunt Jemima" dates, it seems, from the early-mid-1870s, popularized by Joe Lang.

Here's one printing of a version.

https://books.google.com/books?id=LhVLAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA15&dq=%22garden+siftin+sand% (Scroll up one page.)

The verses are common ones from the minstrel and/or Black American repertoire, many of which will be recognized as "floating verses" in chanties.

My ole Missus a-promised me
    Ole Aunt Jemima, oh I oh
That when she died she'd a-sot me free
      Ole Aunt Jemima, oh I oh
Ole Aunt Jemima....
    Ole Aunt Jemima
[it then adds a coda, that doesn't make it into John Kanaka's form]

For me, the "slave" theme -- the talk about the missus/master in control -- parallels the dialogue with the ship's master (captain), who grants "holiday" from work. (This would be Christmas day for enslaved people.)

One can see the "character" of "Aunt Jemima" filling the "slot" (paradigm) of another character, John Kanaka. (There's some harmony, I think, between "Jemima" and "Kanaka.") Perhaps, "John Kanaka" is grafted in as another stock ethnic-stereotype. Or, perhaps, there was the chanty based on this tune, "John, come tell us as we haul away" (documented by Hugill), wherein "John Kome-tell-us-as-we" morphs into "John kanaganaga" (Eckstorm/Smyth) / "John kanakanaka".

And of course, the "oh i oh" are the nonsense syllables occupying the same place as "tu lay ey."

But the tune shape and form are the distinctive thing here.

First, the tune shape is like "John Kanaka."

But the really distinctive thing is the way, after the first four lines (couplet part 1, refrain, couplet part 2, refrain) we get an unusual break into an "ad libbed" falsetto section, with a fermata (pause) -- the equivalent to the "wild," improvised "tu lay ey oh!... tu lay ey!" Footnote: "The soloist at this point in each verse should break into falsetto."