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As I roved out one evening in the latter part of June,
The sun had just sunk down to rest and brighter shone the moon;
I took a stroll from camp, my boys, to view the scenery 'round,
'Twas there I spied an Indian girl all sitting on the ground.
As I advanced towards her she did not seem afraid,
So I sat along beside her, these words to her I said:
"You do surprise me very much although you are a squaw,
To find you here so lonely on the banks of Penmanah"
I scarcely gave one look at her when tears began to fall,
She said, "Young man, draw near to me and I will tell you all,
My sisters and my brothers died, likewise my pa and ma,
And that's why I'm so lonely here on the banks of Penmanah."
"And that is not the worst of all, the lover who was mine,
He was a bold young British lad upon the Baltic Line;
He courted me, he flattered me, and said I was his squaw,
And he left me here heart-broken on the banks of Penmanah."
"Oh, rise, oh, rise, you Indian girl, and come along with me,
I'll take you to a happier home in a peaceful countery;
I'll dress you up in costly robes the like you never saw,
And you need no more go lonely on the banks of Penmanah."
"Oh, no, kind sir," she answered me, "with you I cannot go,
I made a vow I'd live and die with the reindeer and the doe;
Since that paleface Briton has broke his oath and I am but a squaw,
It's here I mean to live and die on the banks of Penmanah."
A lumber camp song collected in 1960 from Leonard Hulan of Jeffrey's, NL, by Ken Peacock and published in Songs Of The Newfoundland Outports, Volume 2, pp.424-425, by The National Museum of Canada (1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved. A variant was also sung by Pattie Maher (b.1893) of Flatrock, NL, and published as Banks Of Panama in MacEdward Leach And The Songs Of Atlantic Canada © 2004 Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA).
MacEdward Leach (1897-1967) also collected a variant published as #95, Banks Of Panama, in Folk Ballads And Songs Of The Lower Labrador Coast by the National Museum of Canada (Ottawa, 1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved.
Kenneth Peacock noted that as far as he knew this rare ballad has never before appeared in a collection. The fact that the Indian girl's lover was British might indicate a late colonial origin, though the existence of the Baltic Line in colonial times would have to be checked.
