Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Azizi
Date: 07 Jun 09 - 09:37 PM

And for the record (in case someone was going to point out that I'm not the only Person of Color on Mudcat now) , I know there is at least one other Person of Color on Mudcat at the present time who has publicly acknowledged that he is a Person of Color. I also know of two other Mudcatters who have privately indicated to me that they are Black. It's their decision whether they want to share this information in the public forum or not. IMO, race/ethnicity often adds context to a person's comments. I'm speaking as an amateur folklorist who believes in gathering race/ethnicity demographics as well as age, gender, geographical location, and date. Some people may not agree with this position. "Different stokes for different folks."

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 07 Jun 09 - 09:41 PM

Snuffy, just guesses.
Speculation about the song is that variants of the song reached Canada from France and the Channel Islands in the 17th c., but little to back that up. Only fragments (e.g. Chantey song, coll. Creighton). It has musical elements found in French Coastal songs (see le chasse-marée), but nothing concrete. I have just the first four "Cahiers de chants de marins" from Chasse-marée and one French marine song cd of the many, a poor representation, so I only have a 'feeling' that the song is French about vessels working towns along the French Atlantic coast, and that perhaps the Jersey version may be close to an older French song. Porchémue of the song is an old French name for Portsmouth.

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: GUEST,Jim P
Date: 08 Jun 09 - 04:02 AM

Clearly, Heiland Laddie and Donkey Riding share a tune as well as lyrics, but Heiland Laddie dates back to at least Burns (as "I Hae Been to Crookieden"). Since learning this is a "two-fer," I perform Heiland Laddie as below, and "Donkey Riding" in the usual three-line form. I first encountered the Jacobin (non-shanty) version from a track on the Tannahill Weavers' "Mermaid's Song." From their website:

"All versions of this song that we are aware of have only two verses. We have taken the liberty of putting two versions together. We have completed this musical "club sandwich" by adding a pipe tune at either end of the song. Greenwood Side is of the traditional variety and Pattie is yet another super composition from Neil Dickie.

LYRICS:

Where have you been all the day, bonnie laddie, highland laddie
Saw ye him that's far away, bonnie laddie, highland laddie
On his head a bonnet blue, bonnie laddie, highland laddie
Tartan plaid and highland trews, bonnie highland laddie

I ha'e been at Crookieden, bonnie laddie, highland laddie
Watching Wullie and his men, bonnie laddie, highland laddie
There our foes that burnt and slew, bonnie laddie, highland laddie
There at last they got their due, bonnie highland laddie

Satan sits in yon black neuk, bonnie laddie, highland laddie
Breaking sticks tae roast the duke, bonnie laddie, highland laddie
The bluidie monster gied a yell, bonnie laddie, highland laddie
Loud the lach gaed roon' a' Hell, bonnie highland laddie

Geordie sits in Cherlie's chair, bonnie laddie, highland laddie
Had I my wish he'd no' sit there, bonnie laddie, highland laddie
Ne'er reflect on sorrows past, bonnie laddie, haghland laddie
Cherlie will be king at last, bonnie highland laddie"

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 08 Jun 09 - 04:13 AM

I have always thought of the "Donkey",at least in this instance,as being the capstan,whereon the fiddler or other musician would sit whilst a capstan shanty was being sung,hence "riding on a donkey"--I am prepared to give it some credence,anyway ! Simple & logical.
    Whilst serving before the mast Ha Haargh Jim lad,my fellow Lowest-Forms-of-Human-Life and I were wont to refer to our Chinese colony as "Honky Fid". A "Kong" was four of a kind in "Mah Jong"---times change !!

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Gedi
Date: 08 Jun 09 - 08:40 AM

I'm with you on this Azizi - I too cringed when I saw that reference, and I appreciate (and agree with) your comments as to why you found it offensive.

cheers
Ged

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Azizi
Date: 08 Jun 09 - 08:58 AM

Thanks, Gedi. Knowing Mudcatters, I figured that I wasn't the only one who had that reaction upon reading about that gesture.

That said, I don't intend to address that issue anymore on this thread and look forward to reading about additional examples and analysis of this song.

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Snuffy
Date: 08 Jun 09 - 09:03 AM

No "golden crown" in my version:

Was you ever in XXXXXXXX town
Where the girls all do come down
Only charge you half-a-crown
Riding on a donkey.

Of course half-a-crown (2/6d) doesn't mean a lot to most Brits under 40 years old, nor to those residing outwith these sceptered isles.

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Jun 09 - 01:16 PM

In "Folk Songs of Canada," Fowke and Johnston mention the version of "Hieland Laddie" (Donkey Riding) in Charles Nordhoff, "Nine Years a Sailor," 1857, in which Quebec, Dundee, Merrimashee and Mobile are mentioned.
He obtained it from cotton screwers in Mobile. Mentioned in passing in Hugill.
Hugill gives 10 verses and a chorus of "Donkey Riding" in "Shanties and Sailors' Songs, but provides no information as to source

Does anyone have access to the Nordhoff book? Not available at Abebooks or Alibris.
I would like to know the exact form of the song he collected.

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 08 Jun 09 - 01:45 PM

Nordhoff:

Were you ever in Quebec,
Chorus:--Bonnie laddie, highland laddie,
Stowing timber on the deck,
Chorus:--My bonnie highland laddie oh.

[Similarly:]

Were you ever in Dundee....
There some pretty ships you'll see....

Were you ever in Merrimashee....
Where you make fast to a tree....

Were you ever in Mobile Bay....
Screwing cotton by the day....

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Jun 09 - 02:07 PM

Thanks, Lighter. Are those the lyrics from "Nine years a Sailor"?; although some are repetitious, he was a very clear writer, very easy reading.

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Jun 09 - 03:47 PM

Two and six - that 12 and a half pence in this modern money. Or 14.4 eurocents in euro-currency. There's inflation for you...

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 08 Jun 09 - 04:48 PM

Q,

Nordhoff's A MERCHANT VESSEL (1855) has that reference. You can download it free on Google Books/Scholar!

Good luck
Gibb

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 08 Jun 09 - 04:49 PM

Only charge you half-a-crown

Much better, obsolete term or no!

Now does your version have the "skeeters." or can we cook up something a little more grown-up? :)

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Jun 09 - 05:52 PM

Thanks,Lighter.
Nordhoff seems to have rewritten or revised his books, leaving out or changing some contents and publishing them with different titles.
For example, I have "Seeing the World," which has "Stormy," as given in "The Merchant Vessel," but lacks the others and skips to the paragraph about the men "who yearly resort to Mobile Bay to screw cotton..." The other chanteys in "A Merchant Vessel" are omitted.
Apparently he used "Hieland Laddie" again in "Nine Years a Sailor," which is the book referred to by Fowke and Johnston.

I wonder if anyone has compiled his newspaper articles- I have seen a few offered for sale as cut-outs from the papers, but have no idea of the total or variety of these writings.

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 08 Jun 09 - 06:54 PM

Hey, just like Jimmy Crack Corn. Someone just made it up. Hugill is given authority however because he is a real chantey-man.

It makes for a great thread however.

Fakelore or folklore? Who can tell the difference?

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Snuffy
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 09:50 AM

Gibb, I usually sing

Was you ever in Mirimashee
Where they tie you to a tree
And there they leave you all the day
Riding on a Donkey

But I think it should really be "up" not "you" in line 2

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 12:29 PM

Snuffy & Gibb, "See the king in his golden crown" may well be legit.
It certainly occurs in a 19th C. music-hall sea song called "Little Powder Monkey Jim." Which is not say that other things weren't also sung.

IMHO, "only charge you half a crown" is a little too indirect for folk bawdry. The "half a crown" part sounds absolutely right, but my guess is that unrefined sailors would have said exactly what the "girls" were charging half a crown for.

But "Where the skeeters do bite we" is indeed ridiculous.

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Snuffy
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 07:41 PM

Lighter

I've never been able to make out much at all of William Rennie's Powder Monkey Jim on the Carpenter recording, and can't access Jstor, which seems to be the only place on the web with it.

Have you decoded the recording, or found a print version at Jstor or elsewhere?

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 08:19 PM

"The price of me loves a half a crown
Pay me the money down
A half a crown or I don't drop 'em down
Pay me the money down"

Barry

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 09:29 PM

Snuffy, how's this?

THE POWDER MONKEY.

A yarn I've got to spin, as how I've heard my old Dad tell,
Of a gallant little hero, who aboard the Vict'ry fell;
He was brimmin' full o' courage, an' was just the sort of lad
To make the sort o' sailor that our Navy's always had.
As powder-monkey, little Jim was pet of all the crew,
With his flaxen hair so curly, an' his pretty eyes o' blue;
An' the bo's'n always said as how that what got over him
Was the chorus of a sailors' song, as sung by little Jim:

Chorus:
Soon we'll be in London town,
Sing, my lads, yo, ho!
An' see the king in a golden crown;
Sing, my lads, yo, ho!
Heave ho! on we go,
Sing, my lads, yo, ho!
Who's a-fear'd to meet the foe?
Sing, my lads, yo, ho!

In ninety-eight we chased the foe right into "Bouky Bay,"
And we fought away like niggers all the night till break of day.
The foeman's flagship "Orient" was blow'd away sky high,
With the Admiral an' all his crew — and sarve 'em right, says I.
Now little Jim was in the thick of all the fire an'smoke,
An' seemed to think that fightin' hard was nothin' but a joke,
For he handed up the powder from the magazine below,
An' all the while a-singin' like as if his pluck to show:

(CHORUS)

But little Jim was book'd, for as the fight was just on won,
A musket bullet pick'd him off, before his song was done;
They took him to the cock-pit, where a-smilin' he did lie,
And the sailors, well, there wern't a man but somehow pip'd his eye. Says Jim, "My lads, don't fret for me, but if the shore ye see,
Give a kiss to dear old mother, an' say it came from me."
An' there never was a braver heart that serv'd our gracious King, Than the little powder-monkey who so gaily used to sing:

(CHORUS)



The "London town"/ "golden crown" lines of the chorus go to a melody *very* much like that of "Donkey Riding."

A 1923 issue of the journal "The Windmill" quotes the original chorus, adding "The ribald sang,'See the king with his trousers down.'"

In "Donkey Riding," the previous line is "Where the gals they do come down." In 1961 Hugill might not have cared to print what they came down to see, even if it seems relatively tame today.


Part of the actual chorus is quoted in Punch for Sept. 8, 1888.

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 09:38 PM

Peter Munch first printed "Little Powder Monkey Jim" in JAFL, vol. 74, no. 293, 1961; later in 1970, "The Song Tradition of Tristan da Cunha," Bloomington, Indiana.
In order for it to have a proper heading, I will put it in a new thread.

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Jun 09 - 10:02 PM

Glad Lighter beat me to it.
The lyrics in the JAFL article have a few words different, e. g. verse 2:
Line 1- In ninety-eight we chased the foe right into Bony Bay,
Line 8- And all the while was singing as if his pluck to show:
The title given is "Little Powder Monkey Jim."
Printed with musical score, 4/4.

Munch also printed a whaling song, no title, but with musical score
and "Her Sailor Boy," also with music.
Other songs were versions of Barbara Allen and other well-known English folk songs.

On a later visit, Munch found the words of "Little Powder Monkey Jim" much changed; he also gives the revised version, with music.
The chorus had become:

Soon we'll be in London town,
sing malatchie, oh
See the king in his golden crown,
sing malatchie, oh,
Heave ho, on we go,
sing malatchie, oh,
Who's a-fair to me to foe,
sing malatchie, oh, ho.

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Snuffy
Date: 10 Jun 09 - 04:11 AM

Lighter and Q

Many thanks to you both: I shall re-listen to William Rennie with the words in front of me.

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Sep 09 - 01:31 PM

Donkey riding we will go, heave ho, heave ho!

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: GUEST,Tony G
Date: 16 Feb 11 - 03:36 PM

Well having been out in the far east on various vessels and had the love boats come alongside with its cargo of girls. I think the line is a sexual inuendo but may also refer to the fact that the ladies of the orient are great gamblers and I have seen fights over Mah Jong games so it may be a double meaning or a mis spelling even.

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: open mike
Date: 16 Feb 11 - 08:18 PM

Hong-ki-kong
is actually Donkey Kong,
and refers to a popular
video game...

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 03 Jan 13 - 06:46 PM

Related:
Has anyone wondered about the "coffee and bohay" lyric in the same song/same version?

I have a good theory...but I'll spare you if it is obvious (e.g. to Brits).

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: GUEST,Mike Muir
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 07:50 AM

Another latecomer to this thread. I lived in New Brunswick for 3 years, "skeeters" should be replaced with "blackfly", which gits nicely, and the do indeed "bite we"! These little pests are also known as "no see'ums".

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: GUEST,Rumncoke
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 11:46 AM

I used to know the song from school, and the rude version too, later - but it was over 40 years ago and I'm blowed if I can remember either.

Mind you - it is a shanty - you just make up dirty lines as you go along and then you make up some more so as to get a laugh from those expecting the ones you did last time.

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: GUEST,eldergirl on another computer
Date: 07 Oct 13 - 12:50 PM

for instance,   

I know a bloke named Buffalo Bill ( heave away, haul away)

He says he won't, but his buffalo will! (we're bound for south Australia)

with thanks to Graeme Knights.

And a Kong is still four of a kind in mah jong.

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Dec 23 - 04:56 AM

Bumping this thread in light of a current thread (containing a Christmas-themed parody of "Donkey Riding") in which a poster states that the song neither refers to literally riding a donkey nor to a donkey engine.

I am presently doubtful that the phrase does not plainly refer to riding a donkey and I'm curious to know when the idea of the donkey engine might have creeped into discourse.

So, I'm adding a few additional sources that haven't appeared (fully) yet here.

Wood, Thomas, ed. The Oxford Song Book. Vol. II. Oxford University Press, 1927.

Page 63 has "Donkey Riding" with score.

Were you ever in Quebec
Stowing timber on the deck?
Where there's a King with a golden crown
Riding on a donkey.

Chorus:
Hey! ho! away we go
Donkey riding, donkey riding
Hey! ho! away we go,
Riding on a donkey.


Were you ever off the Horn
Where it's always fine and warm,
And seen the lion and the unicorn
Riding on a donkey?

(Chorus)

Were you ever in Cardiff Bay?
Where the folks all shout 'Hooray!
Here comes John with his three months' pay
Riding on a donkey!'

(Chorus)


Notes: "...was sung thirty or forty years ago [1887-1897] on Lancashire ships and schooners which ran from Liverpool and Glasson Dock to Canada for timber... I am indebted to Mr. Walter Raby for this song."

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Dec 23 - 05:01 AM

Walter Raby is described elsewhere as "Trinity House Pilot of Rampside."

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Dec 23 - 05:13 AM

In Shanties from the Seven Seas (1961), Stan Hugill writes about the song:

"This was also very popular among the timber droghers both in Liverpool and Canadian ports, and was used as both a capstan and runaway song when working cargo. I had my version from an old shipmate called Spike Sennit, who said it was just as popular at sea as in port. The compiler of the Oxford Song Book (II), ...gives a version very similar to mine..."

Ever skeptical of Hugill's loose language, I wonder if he *only* heard the song from Spike Sennit. The first sentence paints it as though he had some broad knowledge about the song, either from firsthand experience and/or documents, but think it could just as well be a conclusion from his reading of the Oxford Song Book with some additional assumptions thrown in.

Hugill presents the song again in Shanties and Sailors' Songs (1969) with no mention of a donkey engine.

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Dec 23 - 05:30 AM

F. P. Harlow included "Riding on a Donkey" in the c.1928 manuscript for his 1928 book The Making of a Sailor. The manuscript, in typescript, was titled "Chanteying on the Ship Akbar," with "The Making of a Sailor" (later, presumably) written in hand above. Most of the chanty material in the manuscript, however, did not make it into the 1928 book.

I have photographs of the table of contents of the manuscript (The Making of a Sailor) but, alas, no image of the page where the song appears. In the table of contents, it is indicted "Halliards."

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Dec 23 - 06:16 AM

Harlow next publishes the chanty material from the "Making of a Sailor" manuscript as "Chanteying Aboard American Ships" in journal installments beginning in April 1948.

The original manuscript for the whole of "Chanteying Aboard American Ships" is dated 1945. That manuscript's table of contents includes "Riding on a Donkey" with both the notes "(Walk Away)" and "Halliards." Sorry again, I don't have access to the page of the manuscript where the song appears.

Chanteying Aboard American Ships was published in its entirety (in book form) in 1962. I presume it contains the same or nearly the same as appeared in the 1945 manuscript.

The book's table of contents lists only the song title. The song appears on pp. 72-3.

The chanties in this part of the book are situated within a narrative of a passage out of Sydney in 1876. Harlow often refers to Brooks, of Brooklyn NY, the main chantyman.

In contextualizing "Riding on a Donkey," Harlow has Brooks leading the song for hauling a topsail halyard.

However, at the top of the score, the song is credited to Capt. J. L. Botterill. Botterill was an Englishman who had sung some chanties to Harlow (i.e. Harlow had "collected" chanties from Botterill, years after his retirement from the sailor profession). Two other chanties credited to Botterill appear in the book, as do chanties credited to print sources like Burgeson. In 1926 correspondence with a third party, in archive, Harlow refers to his contact with Botterill, calling him "a sailor of the later school." It's no surprise that Harlow might need a refresher on the song 50 years after his sailing days, though it's frustrating to get this Botterill version rather than whatever (so we are to believe) Brooks sang in 1876.

The song's text has elements of the "Little Powder Monkey Jim" (Creighton's "Chanty Song," mentioned up-thread).

Soon we'll be in London Town
    Sing ye lads, hi-oh!
We'll see the Queen with a golden crown.
    Sing ye lads, hi-oh!
    Hi-oh and away we'll go.
    Sing ye lads, hi-oh!
    Hi-oh and away we'll go,
    Riding on a donkey.

We'll see the girls with eyes of brown
And drink the best there is in town.

We'll clew sail and heave her to
And never sail till the pay day's due.

At Oxford Circus we'll take our stand
Among the lords and ladies grand.

My gal I'll dress in ribbons bright
And at Garrie's show we'll spend the night.

We'll drink the best he's got in store,
And when it's gone we'll call for more.

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Dec 23 - 06:47 AM

As a matter of interest, Punch for January 14, 1887, has this parody of "King of the Cannibal Islands," about Arthur Balfour.

BALFOUR'S "IRREPRESSIBLE" DONKEY.

OH! have you heard--but of course you have--
Of a curious creature, as stubborn as brave,
An iron-heeled kicker, a buck-jumping knave,
      Called the Irrepressible Donkey?

The "Blondin Donkey" is full of his tricks,
But the Irrepressible easily licks
His Music-Hall model in capers and kicks;
And the cleverest rider is found in a fix,
When he sidles up to the animal's side,
Flings o'er the saddle his legs astride,
And rides, or rather essays to ride,
   The Irrepressible Donkey.
    [refrain]See him straddle, behold him rear!
    The cleverest rider may well feel fear,
    And cling to the neck; or hold on by the ear,
    Of the Irrepressible Donkey.

This mischievous "moke" is an awkward brute,
And apt from the saddle to suddenly shoot
The would-be Balaam who doesn't suit
    The Irrepressible Donkey.
Many a Balaam that seat hath had,
Riders good, and riders bad,
But Tory, Liberal, Whig, or Rad,
This dreadful donkey has driven them mad.
FORSTER fuzzy, and BALFOUR tall,
HICKS-BEACH, MORLEY, each and all,
At one time or other, have had a fall
    From the Irrepressible Donkey.
       [refrain]

BALFOUR mounted as well as most,
And some of his friends are beginning to boast
That he's a right RARERY, who will not be tost
    From the Irrepressible Donkey
Of Donkey-riding he has the gift,
Is up to each asinine struggle and shift,
Can make the animal feel his heft,
And prone on his back will never be left,
BALFOUR, they say, is a blessed boon,
He'll treat as the Colonel treated the coon,
And make dance, soon, to a genteel tune,
    The Irrepressible Donkey.
    [refrain]

Well, that, of course, remains to be seen;
At present the creature is prancing, I ween;
There still seems some "devil," and plenty of spleen.
    In the Irrepressible Donkey.
Round he goes with his hoofs asprawl,
His mouth gapes wide, and his teeth aren't small,
With his ears laid back, and his tail to the wall,
He doesn't appear a nice "mount" at all.
To brave BALFOUR and his "resolute" Chief
'Twill be a great joy, and a real relief,
To find there's one rider does not come to grief
    With the Irrepressible Donkey.
    [refrain] See him straddle, and stamp, and rear!
    Look at his grinders, and twig his ear!
    He'll still want a good deal of "riding," I fear--
    The Irrepressible Donkey!

Funny that the scansion of "Cannibal Islands" matches versions of "Donkey Riding." And what are the odds that the parody would have a similar "donkey" refrain-phrase? I can't imagine this one-off in Punch catching on, much less among sailors, so perhaps it's just a funny coincidence, but I think it is interesting.

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Dec 23 - 07:43 AM

In the songbook Folk Songs of Canada, 1954, edited by Edith Fowke, the version of "Donkey Riding" is that of the Oxford Song Book.

Fowke's notes on the song echo Wood/Oxford, plus some of her own suppositions. She states, parenthetically, "(The 'donkey' refers to donkey engines used in loading cargo.)"

My present guess is that this is the source (handy for Canadian kids'/school singing, the channel through which the song was most popularized) of the popular idea about the steam engine metaphor.

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Lighter
Date: 17 Dec 23 - 10:03 AM

Gibb, I wonder if you share my perceptions that

1. "Chanteying Aboard American Ships" isn't in finished form, despite its (welcome) book publication. The narrative part, IIRC, gives out midway through, to be followed by miscellaneous songs from all over.
2. Many of Harlow's texts seem "literary," in the Davis & Tozer tradition, as though he were trying to fill out or improve songs he'd partly forgotten.

3. Not all his versions are trustworthy.

It's easy for us trained researchers to underestimate non-scholars' innocently cavalier attitude toward their material. Harlow undoubtedly felt that any tinkering he may have done was not only harmless but beneficial. The words of chanteys varied anyway, right?

I see the book as more of an enthusiast's hodgepodge than as a careful (much less meticulous) record.

Subject: RE: Donkey Riding - What's Hong-ki-kong?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 18 Dec 23 - 04:13 AM

Jon,

It's a mess. I'm not going to remember all of the details from when I dissected it (or when we, including you, might have participated in that dissection on Mudcat), but yes, the Rule #1 I follow is that everything after the narrative part should be treated with skepticism.

It's worth repeating that the material was put together 50 years (!) after Harlow's sea service. It happened, too, after Harlow had been active in various concertizing activities at the height of the sea shanties craze of the mid-1920s. He's 70 years old and suddenly trying to put together a collection.

Harlow's simple narrative of his sea experiences appears quite solid and makes The Making of a Sailor quite useful. However, he seems to have felt (compelled by exactly which forces at the start, I don't know) to take up the contemporary interest in chanties and build that into the tale. I imagine (just thinking here) that because Harlow knew a thing or two about chanties (which I do believe he did) he was either called on (by local folks on the sea shanties bandwagon) or felt inspired to pipe up during that time to add his voice to it all—which is nice to an extent, but he ended up overstepping the limits of what he could speak to with accuracy. I imagine that is why the publisher made him cut most of the chanty material in order to get Making of a Sailor published, to keep it a solid travel narrative.

The narrative part in CAAS, as well, is problematic, even if less hodgepodge-y than the rest. I hint at it in the preceding posts: Did the chantyman, Brooks, *really* sing "Donkey Riding" in that way, or at all, back in 1876?

"South Australia" and "Shenandoah" are two other examples of songs in that section which come to mind as looking iffy.

Is the narrative a true account of when/what chanties occurred during the voyage, or has he used the voyage narrative-form as a shell in which to present all chanties of which he is in possession and he has fabricated what was actually sung because it seems close enough to what "could" have happened?

I'm grateful to have the work, but, like Hugill (for whom I'm also grateful), the work blurs the author's experience with his research many years later.