Sea Lion Woman Christine and Katherine Shipp

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The exact origins of the song are unknown but it is believed to have originated in the southern United States. According to Tom Schnabel of KCRW [1], he was told that: Nina Simone’s “Sealine Woman” is a 19th-century seaport song about sailors and prostitutes. The sailors would come into port (Charleston or New Orleans perhaps). Women of the pleasure quarters would be waiting, lined up dockside. Their dress colors signified the specific delights they offered. That is what the song is really about. This would explain the term 'Sea line' (a line of women by the sea) or alternatively, 'See-line' (women standing in a line to be seen)

Library of Congress field recording Herbert Halpert.

“On May 13, 1939, Herbert Halpert made a series of field recordings in Byhalia, MS, including several with the family of Walter and Mary Shipp. Walter, a sharecropper and minister, and Mary, a choir director, had 14 children, several of whom participated in the archival project, but the couple’s two daughters, Katherine and Christine, then 19 and 20 years old, were the real standouts, delivering several rope-skipping rhymes and rhythms that still have an intimate and haunting power all these years later, particularly the eerie and mysterious fragment called “Sea Lion Woman.” The lyrics of this song for keeping time are simple enough, mostly about drinking coffee and drinking tea, but there’s an ominous, edgy, and unsaid eeriness about it that moves beyond words and meaning. The lyric has been given several variant titles over the years, including “Sea Lion Woman,” “See Lyin’ Woman,” “C-Line Woman,” “See-Lye Woman,” “See Line Woman” (this is the title used by Nina Simone for her version), and “She Lyin’ Woman,” all of which only adds to the enigmatic nature of the recording that the Shipp sisters made that day.” – All Music Guide

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Lion_Woman