John Kanaka
DESCRIPTION: Shanty. Characteristic line: "John Kanaka-naka, too-li-ay." The sailors describe how they will "work tomorrow but no work today!" Some details of their trip around the horn on a Yankee ship are givenAUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1926 (Eckstorm/Smyth-MinstrelsyOfMaine)
KEYWORDS: sailor shanty work
FOUND IN: West Indies(Barbados) US(NE)
REFERENCES (7 citations):
Hugill-ShantiesFromTheSevenSeas, pp. 288-289, "John Kanaka" (1 text, 1 tune) [AbEd, p.212]
Kinsey-SongsOfTheSea, pp. 94-95, "John Kanaka" (1 tet, 1 tune)
Fahey-Eureka-SongsThatMadeAustralia, pp. 50-51, "John Kanaka" (1 text, 1 tune)
Thompson-BodyBootsAndBritches-NewYorkStateFolktales, p. 219, "(No title)" (1 short text, which lacks the chorus but has the same first line as the Maine version of this song; it is too short to classify otherwise)
Eckstorm/Smyth-MinstrelsyOfMaine, p. 210, "Too-Li-Aye" (1 text)
Heart-Songs, pp. 72-73, "A Yankee Ship, and a Yankee Crew" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, JONKANAK*
Roud #8238
NOTES [190 words]: "Kanaka" was a term applied to Hawaiian men. Whether this song is referring to that or to "Canucks" (French-Canadians) is obscure. - PJS
The term is used in Australia for Polynesians in general, especially those who worked in the Queensland sugar plantations. (It is said to mean simply "man.") I have to suspect that the song originally referred to the Polynesians, though of course northern sailors might have thought it meant Canucks.
Edward E. Morris, A Dictionary of Austral English, 1898 (I use the 1972 Sydney University Press with a new foreword but no new content), p. 229, defines it as "n. and adj. a labourer from the South Sea Islands, working in Queensland sugar-plantations. The word is Hawaaian (Sandwich Islands)." The first use of the word in Hawaii is dated to 1794.
The version in Heart-Songs, "A Yankee Ship, and a Yankee Crew," is implicitly lumped here by Roud. I'm far from sure I agree -- "John Kanaka" is not mentioned, and the chorus form is different -- but I'll file it here to let you think about it. But I used the Eckstorm/Smyth-MinstrelsyOfMaine version as the earliest date, because it's certainly this. - RBW
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File: FaE050
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Here are the Digital Tradition lyrics that we have:
JOHN KANAKAa
I heard, I heard, the old man say,
John Kanaka-naka tu-lai-ay!
Today, today is a holiday,
John Kanaka-naka tu-lai-ay!
Tu-lai-ay, Oh! Tu-lai-ay!
John Kanaka-naka tu-lai-ay!
We'll work tomorrow, but no work today,
We'll work tomorrow, but no work today.
We're bound away for 'Frisco Bay,
We're bound away at the break of day.
We're bound away around Cape Horn,
We wish to Christ we'd never been born!
Oh haul, oh haul, oh haul away,
Oh haul away, an' make yer pay!
@sailor
filename[ JONKANAK
TUNE FILE: JONKANAK
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