Jimmy Sago, Jackeroo

DESCRIPTION: "If you want a situation and you'd like to know the plan To get on a station... Pack up the old portmanteau and label it Paroo, with a name that's aristocratic -- Jimmy Sago, Jackeroo." The song details how the "aristocratic" name can bring benefits
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1905 (Paterson, _Old Bush Songs_)
KEYWORDS: Australia work animal
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Meredith/Anderson-FolkSongsOfAustralia, pp. 130-131, "Jimmy Sago, Jackeroo" (1 text, 1 tune)
Anderson-StoryOfAustralianFolksong, pp. 161-162, "The Jackaroo" (1 text, 1 tune)
Paterson/Fahey/Seal-OldBushSongs-CentenaryEdition, pp. 114-115, "Jimmy Sago, Jackaroo" (1 text)
Ward-PenguinBookOfAustralianBallads, p. 86, "Jimmy Sago, Jackaroo" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Bill Wannan, _The Australians: Yarns, ballads and legends of the Australian tradition_, 1954 (page references are to the 1988 Penguin edition), pp. 189-190, "Jimmy Sago, Jackeroo" (1 text)
Bill Beatty, _A Treasury of Australian Folk Tales & Traditions_, 1960 (I use the 1969 Walkabout Paperbacks edition), pp. 281-282, "Jimmy Sago, Jackeroo" (1 text)
Roud #8394
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Wearing of the Green" (tune, according to Wannan)
NOTES [315 words]: According to Patterson/Fahey/Seal, a Jackaroo was a young man working on a station to gain experience -- in effect, an apprentice. Naturally he was teased and held in low esteem.
The spelling is uncertain (Jackaroo/Jackeroo), as is the origin; Learmonth, article on "Jackeroo" (their spelling) says that the "origin is uncertain, most probably a coined Aus.-ouning word based on a 'Jacky Raw', but an Aboriginal origin is also claimed." It adds that a female parallel, "Jillaroo," dates from the twentieth century.
Morris, p. 215, is another who prefers "Jackaroo" (where were all you people when I first entered this song?), and defines the word as a noun, "a name for a Colonial Experience (q.v.), a young man fresh from England, learning squatting.... Compare the American 'tenderfoot...." The word is generally supposed to be a corruption (in imitation of the word Kangaroo) of the name 'Johnny Raw.'" The first citation is from 1880: W. Senior, "Travel and Trout," p. 19. The noun eventually became a verb, "to jackaroo," as well.
Ramson, p. 330, spells the word "Jackeroo," and says that it originally meant "A white man living beyond the bounds of close settlement," but lists this sense as obsolete and gives a second definition similar to that in Morris.
Manifold, who also spells it "Jackaroo," says on p. 86 that "jackaroos... were usually educated young men studying the art and mystery of station management; sometimes they included a 'colonial-experiencer' or 'pommy jackaroo.'" On p. 87, after listing a few songs he thinks came from jackaroos, says, "The jackaroo, as you see, likes to think of himself as a full-fledged stockman or bushman; if he does a single small job of droving he fancies himself a drover; it is undignified to be a mere jackaroo."
Manifold, pp. 94-95, was told by an informant that this is derived from "Hot Ashphalt," i.e. "The Hot Ash-Pelt." - RBW
Bibliography

Learmonth: Andrew and Nancy Learmonth, Encyclopedia of Australia, 2nd edition, Warne & Co, 1973
Manifold: John S. Manifold, Who Wrote the Ballads? Notes on Australian Folksong, Australasian Book Society, 1964
Morris: Edward E. Morris, A Dictionary of Austral English, 1898 (I use the 1972 Sydney University Press with a new foreword but no new content)
Ramson: W. S. Ramson, editor, The Australian National Dictionary: A Dictionary of Autralianisms on Historical Principles, Oxford University Press (Melbourne), 1988

Last updated in version 5.2
File: MA130

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