I was reading a book about Denny Day, the man who brought to justice the transgressors from the Myall Creek Massacre (look for my book Massacre at Myall Creek in book stores).
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I came upon a sentence that said: “Such hunting parties (killing Aborigines) were called drives or bushwhacks, as much a sport as riding to hounds.”
Later in the same book appears: “Two gentlemen entered the room, dragged the girl out and beat in her head at the door. The blood was still there when grandfather came home.”
So in the eyes of some people, bushwhacker wasn’t a very pleasant word.
I remembered that bushwhack had been used often when I was a young person, but I’m sure it had a different meaning.
In 1929, P. R. Stephenson said only a few lived on after the white men came to whack the bush.
Bushwhack is used in Australia and the USA.
My Oxford Australian National Dictionary says it means to work in the country, clearing the ground to fell timber.
Merriam Webster says it means “to attack suddenly”.
My big dictionary says the word means “to beat the bush; to attack or kill in the manner of a bushwhacker”.
It then goes on to say that combatants in the American Civil War took to the woods and were variously regarded as patriotic guerillas (or guerrillas, take your pick) or as bushrangers or bush fighters.
Even Davy Crockett had a go at bushwhacking when he said about a stump “and began to bushwhack in the most approved style”.
The original meaning of bushwhack seems to have died out.
Now it seems to relate to a person who resides in the bush and carried out bush duties.
Craig Carver, writing in A History of English in Its Own Words, says that the Macquarie Dictionary had 67 words containing bush. I didn’t count them, but rather accepted Carver’s count.
However, the Oxford Australian National Dictionary in several pages did have many definitions of bush, including bush ballad, bush bed, bush boy, bush work, bush horse, bush hospitality, bushy hotel, bush shower, bush song and several other definitions of bush.
Then there are bush capital, another name for Canberra, bush brotherhood, bush lawyer, bushfire, bush bible, bushranger, bush telegraph or bushed. And the list goes on.
Carver said a bush baby, or a baby conceived in the American bush, was sometimes humorously called a bushwhacker.
In Australia and New Zealand, the meaning of bushwhacked has changed to an unskilled labourer, working in the bush of course.
In 1907, W. H. Koebel writing Return of Joe in New Zealand said “cutting good terbaccer as if you was bushwacking”. He couldn’t spell either.
In 1929, P. R. Stephenson said only a few lived on after the white men came to whack the bush.
Then in 1977, J. Carter in All Things Wild said “he did most of his bush-whacking with a glass in one hand and his foot on the bar rail”.
Xavier Herbert in Capricornia said newspapers were only fit for the purpose “we bushwhackers use ‘em for when we’ve read ‘em”.
The late Stephen Murray-Smith said a bushwhacker was one lacking in social graces. The word was a recent one in this country, having previously been used in the American Civil War to refer to deserters who raided homes.
“In New Zealand, the word is used of someone who clears the bush, especially an axeman,” he said.
The late Stephen Murray-Smith preferred the spelling bushwhacker to bushwacker.
lauriebarber.com; lbword@midcoast.com.au
