Songs of the sea

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Songs of the sea
from http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/

Ahoy there! Sea shanties, work songs sung on board sailing ships, were a feature of seafaring life in the 19th century. Although most shanties were of British or American origin, some had a distinctly New Zealand flavour.

Sea shanties were work songs or chants sung by the crew of

sailing ships to help co-ordinate their efforts as they hauled on the halyards or tramped around the capstan to raise the anchor. In the 19th century shanties were commonly heard aboard vessels sailing to and from New Zealand and around the coast. Although most well-known shanties, such as ‘Rolling home’, ‘Drunken sailor’, ‘Homeward bound’, ‘Shenandoah’, ‘The Rio Grande’ and ‘Maggie May’, were British or American in origin, their words were frequently adapted to include local places, people and stories.

In the early 20th century the historian James Cowan collected several shanties with a New Zealand flavour, including ‘I’ve traded with the Maoris’, which was an adaptation of the British capstan shanty ‘The sailor’s way’:

I’ve traded with the Maoris

Brazilians and Chinese

I’ve courted half-caste beauties 

Beneath the kauri trees;

I’ve travelled along, with a laugh and a... LINK