Peter Baskerville, Australian citizen.

Waltzing Matilda is the act of carrying a ‘swag’ and wandering aimlessly

through the outback of Australia, looking for work as the need arose.

According to Henry Lawson in ‘The Romance of the Swag, 1907:

“Travelling with the swag in Australia is variously and picturesquely described

as “humping bluey,” “walking Matilda,” “humping Matilda,” “humping your

drum,” “being on the wallaby,” “jabbing trotters,” and “tea and sugar

burglaring,” but most travelling shearers now call themselves travellers, and

say they are simply “on the track,” or “carrying swag.”

Now the term ‘waltzing’ comes from the German expression Auf die Walz

gehen which means to take to the road and rove as a journeyman carrying

their tool-roll, often called their “Mathilda”.

Apprentices in various trades or crafts in the Middle Ages, were required to

serve an allotted period traveling around the country or outside of Germany

gaining experience and new techniques for their trade. The apprentice gained

employment with master craftsmen in various towns, earning their living as

they went and sleeping where he could. All this was part of the guild system

for apprentice tradesmen and was not abolished until about 1911.

Once their allotted time ‘on the waltz’ was complete, the apprentice would

report back to the master craftsman to secure their release to be able to

practice as a tradesman. Waltzing then came to mean ‘to travel while working

as a craftsman’. ‘Waltzing About’ also became a colloquial term meaning to

walk around aimlessly.

The term ‘Matilda’ is an old Germanic name meaning ‘mighty battle maid’,

although more likely named ‘Mathildas’ or “Mechilde”. It was initially a name

given to female camp followers, but eventually it evolved into meaning ‘to be

kept warm at night’. For most soldiers, this duty was performed by their large

grey overcoat that they would wrapped around themselves. These coats were

then rolled up and carried over their shoulder while they were marching.

In Australia then, Matilda became a mock-romantic word for a swag and so to

waltz matilda was to hit the road with a swag on your back. In the Australian

bush, ‘Matilda’ became a slang term to mean the de facto wife who

accompanied a wanderer and was their sleeping partner. For the vast majority

of swagmen, their Matilda was their warm blue blankets.

So, Waltzing Matilda means to wander the Australian outback from place to

place in search of work (Waltzing) with one’s sleeping blanket (Matilda) and

belongings wrapped up as a swag.

Waltzing Matilda's meaning to Australians

Waltzing Matilda is Australia’s national song ... our unofficial national anthem

This tune … this poem … this song. It is an Australian legacy, suckered from our

mother’s milk. We were born into it. It surrounded us and comforted us as a

certitude, as we struggled to find our own identity. Though its original context

is shrouded in mystery, this 120 year old song strangely defines us as a people.

It was a part of our make-up and psyche long before we could sing the song or

recite the words. It stands alone as the icon that speaks to us Aussies of our

home ‘among the gum trees’. Most Aussies have only a limited understanding

of its context yet can still identify fully with its sentiment. Waltzing Matilda has

truly become Australia’s national song and who better to sing it and remind us

of our great heritage, than the late great country legend, Slim Dusty.

It may be ironic to the rest of the world that our song should be about a free-

spirited drifter who took a gleeful opportunistic chance at a free feed, yet

when accosted by the wealthy landowner and the police, chose a suicidal

death over the loss of a free life wandering carefree through the outback of

Australia. But to the average egalitarian, underdog supporting, non-privileged,

resourceful, authority defiant, freedom loving Aussie … it makes perfect sense.

Some may have incorrectly called it “waltzing mathilda” or “walzing matilda”,

but whatever you call it, the sound and the words ‘still smell as sweet’.

Believe it or not, but Australia’s national song and poem Waltzing Matilda, is

actually a wildly romantic invitation. ‘Who’ll come a waltzing matilda with me‘

is an invitation to live the life we dare not.

A life carefree and unattached, without the dragging anchors of

possessions.

A life of enjoying simple pleasures like having a fresh cup of billy tea

while sitting in the shade of a tree on the banks of a cool reflective pond.

A life so ‘jolly’ that a song fills every vacant moment.

A life of no responsibilities apart from the need to secure your next

meal.

A life with no boss and no one telling you what to do, yet not lonely for

“the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him”[1]

A life lived beneath the ‘wondrous glory of the everlasting stars‘[1] by

night and ‘the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended‘[1] by day.

A life of scented eucalyptus on the ‘murmur of the breezes‘[1], and an

ear attuned to the distinctive bush songs of the ‘silver-voiced’ bell birds

and the laughing chorus of kookaburras

Is it any wonder then, that when faced with the loss of this free life, that the

Aussie swagman would chose death over a life lived in custody. It’s not quite

up there with Emiliano Zapata‘s statement “It is better to die on your feet than

live on your knees” but the message from the Aussie swagman is the same. It is

this belief in freedom’s importance to the Australian way of life, that has seen

hundreds of thousands of our countrymen go to war in defence of that

freedom, with over 100,000 of them making the ultimate sacrifice.

Australians know full well, that as one of the most urbanized nations in the

world and being a part of the western capitalist system, that we can never take

up the swagman’s romantic invitation. We want to so much but we just can’t

see how we can ‘come waltzing matilda’ with him through the Australian

outback’s wide open spaces, but it is fun every so often to pretend that we

could. Singing this poem reminds us of the possibility of a simpler happier life

as depicted by the swagman and the pertinent lesson that a life without

freedom is no life at all.

As Bevan Potter says in his family blog about his German heritage:

“So, don’t be disillusioned if you sometimes feel that you want to leave your

secure job, pack your bag and go on the road, because you are simply feeling

some genetic urge to do exactly as your ancestors did, it is why you are

Australian.”

There are other strong emotions tied to this poem that are peculiarly

Australian; like always siding with the underdog and any Aussie ‘down on their

luck’; like the healthy suspicion we have of the motives of those in authority

and our support for the lovable rogues that stand up to them; like a general

disdain for the privileged, ‘silver-spooners’ and unfairly advantaged who where

gifted a life without having to work hard for it like the rest of us did; and the

pettiness of an establishment that could condemn a man for taking one sheep

in ten thousand, just as the English judges made an Australian convict of a man

that stole a loaf of bread to feed a hungry family. Australians are bigger than

that, and in this poem, as in our way of life … we are on the jolly swagman’s

side and not the establishment’s.

For Australians, the swagman never dies. He speaks to us constantly in his

ghostly call contained in the lines of the poem. He asks us the same question

time after time; “Who’ll come a Waltzing Matlda’ with me?” and entreats us to

consider this simpler happier life where possessions do not own us, where

generosity of spirit and the mateship principles of the Aussie sawgman apply

while being ever vigilant in the defence of the freedom we still enjoy.

As Heather Blakey says:

“The ghost of the swagman may be found in the faces of the pioneers who

settled the Never Never; in the eyes of the hardened shearing unionist who

paved the way for Unionism in Australia; within the defiance of the Anzac

storming the beaches of Gallipoli; in the stride of the Bondi life-saver and in the

face of the determined protester thumbing his nose at government officials and

bureaucracy.”

[1] Extracts from "Clancy of the Overflow" - a poem by the same author as

Waltzing Matilda - Banjo Patterson.