*blinks* Okay, I know the context of the song is long lost, but the Wellerman isn’t a South Seas Santa or some shit, bringing presents to all the good little whalers; he was a company employee who was integral to keeping the whalers trapped and in debt to their employer – in this case, the Weller Company, operating out of New Zealand in the 1830s and ‘40s.
Even though the song is about a ship, it’s actually a shore-whaling song, sung by employees of the Weller Company who were dropped on various islands to hunt whales from shore. The whalers were all paid in goods (“sugar and tea and rum”) and generally never made enough cash to be able to repay their debts to the company. That line about “someday… we’ll take our leave and go” was pure wishful thinking, longing for a day that would (probably) never come.
For example, this is what Songs of New Zealand - Songs of a Young Country (ed. Neil Colquhoun) had to say about the song: “Shore whalers, unlike the whalers on ships, could not return to their native land. Even if there were a ship, they couldn’t afford the passage; for they saw no money. Whaling companies such as Wellers’ of Sydney, sent agents across the Tasman to collect the bone and oil; and to pay the men in sugar and rum.”
The impossibility of ever being free of whaling is reflected in the full run of verses (cut off in the original TikTok):
For forty days, or even more,
The line went slack, then tight once more.
All boats were lost (there were only four)
But still the whale did go.
As far as I’ve heard, the fight’s still on;
The line’s not cut and the whale’s not gone.
The Wellerman makes his regular call
To encourage the Captain, crew, and all.
The shipboard whalers in the song will never capture their whale, just as the shore-whalers singing the song will never make enough money to pay back their debts to the company and leave their island. Meanwhile, the Wellerman keeps coming by, bringing sugar and tea and rum, encouraging them all to keep working just a little while longer…
In short: yes, the Wellerman is problematic! He’s the company stooge running the company store, paying everyone in just enough goods to keep them going until the next time he calls. And that’s rather the point of the song.
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