Bufflehead Cabin

rhea137:

Swagman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Photograph of a swagman circa 1901

A swagman (also called tussocker) is an old Australian term describing an underclass of transient temporary workers, who travelled by foot from farm to farm carrying the traditional swag (waterproof bedroll). Also characteristic of swagman attire was a hat strung with corks to ward off flies.

Lifestyle

The swagman’s lifestyle would have been a challenging one. Often they would have been victims of circumstance who had found themselves homeless but there were certainly those who were ‘rovers’ by choice.

Their circumstances would have included a variety of backgrounds from; European and Asian migrants, indigenous people, and ranged from teenagers to the elderly. They would have sometimes been scoundrels on the run from police but we’d like to believe that most were characters that wandered the bush telling yarns of the places they’d been and things they’d done. It would have been hard to find a ‘swaggie’ without a tendency to exaggerate for effect. Other swagmen would have been loners who preferred to keep to themselves. Some would have been alcoholics.

Some periods would have made it common to see them in and around urban areas looking for work or a handout. The most common descriptions are from the period when the country was ‘riding on the sheep’s back’. At this time rovers were offered rations at police stations as an early form of the dole payment. They roamed the countryside finding work as sheep shearers or as farm hands. Not all were hard workers. There are reports of swagmen arriving at the homestead at sundown when it was too late to work, taking in a meal and disappearing before work started the next morning. For these antics they coined the name ‘sundowners’.

Most existed with few possessions as they were limited by what they could carry. Generally they had a swag (canvas bedroll), a tucker bag (bag for carrying food) and some cooking implements which may have included a billy can (tea pot or stewing pot). They carried flour for making damper and sometimes some meat for a stew. They traveled with fellow ‘swaggies’ for periods, walking where they had to go, hitch hiking or stowing aboard cargo trains to get around. They slept on the ground next to a campfire, in hollowed out trees or under bridges. It would have been a challenging lifestyle in any period of history, avoiding snakes, evading bushfires and getting lost.