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Guard's Bay, Port Underwood, 1848

This was collected from Mrs J B Hunter of Murdering Beach, Otago. It was published in the Otago Evening Star on 25 October 1884.

Capt. Bruce was master of the Magnet which traded between Sydney and Otago until it was wrecked at Ikolaki on Banks Peninsula on the 3rd of September 1844. MORE

Geoge Wilsher (not Wilshire) at Molyneux, and the 'Jew' at Tautuku were storekeepers with a reputation for swindling their customers.

'Bloody Jack' Tuhawaiki was the paramount chief of the Kai Tahu Maori in the South Island. He was drowned off Timaru in about the middle of the year 1844. MORE

Peter Shavatt and John Hughes were employed at the Molyneux whaling station.

The First White Boy remembers

The first white boy born in NZ was T.B. Kennard. He was born in 1841 not too long after his parents arrived in N.Z. aboard the Magnet. Kennard grew up among the whalers of Moeraki and Waikouaiti. When his memory was jogged by the lines collected from Mrs Hunter, he said he remembered those "verses of doggerel" which were often recited in a jocular manner.

He said he knew nothing about the hat which received such notoriety, but he did know the owner of it. Peter Shavatt was a Frenchman and a baker by trade. When the shore whaling petered out, Peter built an oven for himself at Matannic Flat and lived in a nearby hut, which wasn't far from where the Kennards lived.  

The whaler whom the rhyme refers to as Old Jack Hughes was a bit of a celebrity in several ways. Mr Kennard said the line should read "Old Jack Hughes had Maori shoes" according to the way he heard it when a child. These Maori shoes were flax or cabbage-tree leaf sandals and many a white man wore them. 'Old Jack' was well known to the settlers and was often called "Bagdad."

Thom's whaling station, Porerua, c.1843

1809 - The Cannibal Isles

At the beginning of the 19th century, reports began coming back to England, from shipwrecked sailors, and later from missionaries, of obsessive cannabalism in Fiji, like this 1809 account -- "That night was spent in eating and drinking and obscenity. The blood drank and the flesh eaten seemed to have a maddening effect... Next morning many of the poor women were unable to move from the continuous connections of the maddened warriors." ... MORE

c.1815 - Vulcan's Cave

Sometime about about 1815 the dance tune 'Vulcan's Cave,' was composed by John Charles White (b.1795, d.1845) a music seller of Bath.

c.1820 - The King of the Cannibal Islands

'Vulcan's Cave' was used as the tune for 'The King of the Cannibal Islands,' which was written in about 1820. This was a comical music hall song, and variants of it are still sung. YouTube

Oh, have you heard the news of late,
About a mighty king so great ?
It you have not, 'tis in my pate‹
The King of the Cannibal Islands.

His name was Poonoo-wingkewang,
Flibeedee flobeedee-buskeebang;
And a lot of Indians swore they'd hang
The King of the Cannibal Islands.

Hokee pokee wonkee fum,
Puttee po pee kaihula cum,
Tongaree, wougaree, chiug ring wum,
The King of the Cannibal Islands. MORE

c.1830 - The Beautiful Land of Australia

This was a parody of King of the Cannibal Isles, using the same tune.

Upon the voyage the ship was lost.
In wretched plight I reached the coast,
And was very nigh being made a roast
By the savages of Australia.

And in the bush I lighted on
A fierce bushranger with his gun,
Who borrowed my garments, every one,
For himself in the bush of Australia.

Illawarra, Mittagong,
Parramatta, Wollongong.
If you wish to become an ourang-outang,
Then go to the bush of Australia. MORE

And of course, 'The Beautiful Coast of New Zealand' was a parody of this parody.

Waikouaiti and Molyneux
Tautuku and Otago too --
If you do not want to be duped by a Jew --
Come to the beautiful coast of New Zealand

References

Frank Fyfe, Whalers' Rhymes, The Maorilander - Journal of the New Zealand Folklore Society no.4 (Spring 1971), pp.11-28.

Angela Annabell 1975 PhD thesis

Herries Beattie. The first white boy born in Otago, A.H. and A.W. Reed, Dunedin, N.Z. 1939

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Published on folksong.org.nz Sept 2008 by John Archer