For most people, the words of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ embody the free spirit, resourcefulness and defiance of authority associated with the Australian national character. The melody is memorable and spirited.
Some scholars and folklorists argue that the song is a political statement in much the same way as classic children’s nursery rhymes attacked political figures in earlier centuries. The song is not an explicit attack on the squatters’ refusal to pay shearers higher wages. However, it has been argued that the plot of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ is based on the conflict that raged between these two groups in the 1890s before the song was composed.
When Allan and Co. published the Marie Cowan version of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ in 1936, they felt it necessary to print a Glossary Of Australian Terms to explain the ‘dialect’ used by Paterson (view image).
WALTZING MATILDA The act of carrying the ‘swag’ (an alternate colloquial term is ‘humping the bluey’).
Matilda is an old Teutonic female name meaning ‘mighty battle maid’. This may have informed the use of ‘Matilda’ as a slang term to mean a de facto wife who accompanied a wanderer. In the Australian bush a man’s swag was regarded as a kind of de facto wife, hence his ‘Matilda’. (Letter to Rt. Hon. Sir Winston Churchill, KG from Harry Hastings Pearce, 19 February 1958. Harry Pearce Papers, NLA Manuscript Collection, MS2765)
BILLABONG A blind channel or meander leading out from a river.
COOLIBAH Sometimes spelled coolabah: a species of gum or eucalyptus tree.
SWAGMAN An Australian tramp, so called on account of the ‘swag’, usually a chaff bag, containing his ‘billy’, provisions and blankets.
BILLY An open topped tin can, with a wire carrying handle, used as a kettle for boiling water into which tea was thrown.
TUCKER BAG A bag for ‘tucker’ or food; part of the ‘swag’.
JUMBUCK A sheep. The term is a corruption of ‘jump up’ (Macquarie Dictionary, 3rd rev. ed. Sydney: Macquarie, 2001)
SQUATTER A grazier, or station (ranch) owner. Note that the meaning of the word changed later in the twentieth century to mean a person who occupied or resided at a property illegally.