Bushman

To A. B. Paterson, son of a dispossessed squatter, writing from a city office, the bushmen with their horses and simple skills were the backbone of Australia.

Its^([the Bulletin's]) writers shaped ‘a group myth about Australians and their destiny’; in the absence of conventional heroes, visiting the past to claim the bushman as the first ‘Australian’, the anti-hero in the struggles against empire.

Later, historian Russel Ward (1958) famously identified the outback bushman as the “typical” Australian – a rugged individualist, courageous and loyal to his mates.