Paterson’s Vivid Insight into a Labor Underclass

Adopting the voice of an itinerant worker, Paterson vividly conveys the grim experiences of outback laborers exploited by unscrupulous farm owners known as “cockatoos.”

Through humorous bush imagery, Paterson details the substandard conditions and poor treatment the worker endures. The cockatoo’s false promises give way to a squalid hut overrun with animals, meager rations, and backbreaking work.

References to sleeping on dog skins and eating unappetizing concoctions like “quondong duff” exaggerate the indignities for comic effect. But underlying details point to genuine hardships of the Australian underclass.

The worker’s camaraderie with the cockatoo’s wife leads to a violent jealousy that epitomizes his powerlessness. His exile without pay completes the portrait of itinerant oppression.

So while exaggerated, “The Stringybark Cockatoo” sheds light on the harsh realities of outback subsistence in Paterson’s era. The humorous folk voice humanizes those forgotten workers and their daily struggles.

THE STRINGY-BARK COCKATOO

I’m a broken-hearted miner, who loves his cup to drain,
Which often times has caused me to lie in frost and rain.
Roaming about the country, looking for some work to do,
I got a job of reaping off a stringy-bark cockatoo.

               Chorus

Oh, the stringy-bark cockatoo,
Oh, the stringy-bark cockatoo,
I got a job of reaping off a stringy-bark cockatoo.

Ten bob an acre was his price–with promise of fairish
board.
He said his crops were very light, ’twas all he could afford.
He drove me out in a bullock dray, and his piggery met my
view.
Oh, the pigs and geese were in the wheat of the stringy-bark
cockatoo.

Chorus: Oh, the stringy-bark, &c.

The hut was made of the surface mud, the roof of a reedy
thatch.
The doors and windows open flew without a bolt or latch.
The pigs and geese were in the hut, the hen on the table
flew,
And she laid an egg in the old tin plate for the stringy-bark
cockatoo.

Chorus: Oh, the stringy-bark, &c.

For breakfast we had pollard, boys, it tasted like cobbler’s
paste.
To help it down we had to eat brown bread with vinegar
taste.
The tea was made of the native hops, which out on the
ranges grew;
‘Twas sweetened with honey bees and wax for the stringy-bark
cockatoo.

Chorus: Oh, the stringy-bark, &c.

For dinner we had goanna hash, we thought it mighty
hard;
They wouldn’t give us butter, so we forced down bread and
lard.
Quondong duff, paddy-melon pie, and wallaby Irish stew
We used to eat while reaping for the stringy-bark cockatoo.

Chorus: Oh, the stringy-bark, &c.

When we started to cut the rust and smut was just beginning
to shed,
And all we had to sleep on was a dog and sheep-skin bed.
The bugs and fleas tormented me, they made me scratch and
screw;
I lost my rest while reaping for the stringy-bark cockatoo.

Chorus: Oh, the stringy-bark, &c.

At night when work was over I’d nurse the youngest child,
And when I’d say a joking word, the mother would laugh and
smile.
The old cocky, he grew jealous, and he thumped me black
and blue,
And he drove me off without a rap–the stringy-bark
cockatoo.

Chorus: Oh, the stringy-bark, &c.