John Kanaka

A "shanty" is a folk song sung by seafaring workers to rhythmically accompany the work they are doing aboard ship. As a matter of fact, this one is known as a "halyard shanty" meaning that it was often sung by the sailors hoisting the biggest sails – very hard work indeed.

"John Kanaka" originates in the South Sea Islands including Hawaii and Polynesia, between there and Australia and New Zealand. The word "kanaka" in some Polynesian tongues means "man" and is how aboriginal peoples of the islands refer to themselves.

One could actually see this and other similar shanties as the way the native sailors could tell their stories and air their complaints about the tough life they had to lead while working on the ships. Mind you, the heyday of this way of life was during the mid-1800s and earlier when large sailboats ruled the sea and were the way most goods traveled from one continent to the other.

If you read about this song on the Internet or in historical books about folk music, you will find that there are many verses, most not appropriate for young singers. But you should probably talk about the origins of the song – an excellent cross curricular opportunity – and how hard life would have been living in the hold of these ships for months on end. It is a life that many of these "kanaka" never survived. There are thousands of wrecked sailing ships littering the bottom of every ocean on earth.

We include four verses, some carefully adapted for young singers. The "tu-lai-e" lyrics are derived from Hawaiian and other nearby languages, but have pretty much turned into nonsense lyrics for the chorus of the song. Milk all of the power you can get from those lines. Many a cappella groups singing this song will often really land on the "oh" syllable and hold it, but that seemed impractical for this setting.

Another classroom approach to this song is to sing it a cappella while moving, clapping, etc. On YouTube™ you will see a number of elementary students from grade two and up rendering it in various ways. Do beware that intermixed with these videos are authentic folk singers performing it in ways you may not want to share with your classes, so be sure you preview them first.