Abstract
The aims of this study are two-fold. First, to reach an understanding of the swagger, his lifestyle, and his outlook on life. And second, to investigate the relationships between the swagger and various groups in New Zealand society, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The North Otago region was chosen as a base for the study because it has traditionally been regarded as one of the main swagger areas in New Zealand. The main town of Oamaru had a population of 4000 to 6000 in the 1890's, and was neither wholly urban or rural. As the service centre for the North Otago hinterland and a road, rail and sea centre, Oamaru had large numbers of itinerants, passing through the town. In the rural hinterland mixed cropping predominated, and this required large numbers of seasonal workers, which were drawn from outside the region.
In Chapter One it is argued that rural itinerant workers were integrated into a rural structure that was both labour intensive and seasonal. Chapter Two discusses the characteristics which separate the swagger from other rural itinerants, which I have called, the "swag-carriers". In
Chapter Three the conflict between the swagger and a developing bureaucracy, and middle class ideology in the late nineteenth century, is analysed. In Chapters Four and Five, the attitudes of rural and towns people towards the swagger are investigated. A model based on the value system of "reputation" and "respectability is used in Chapter Six to explain the ambivalence of attitudes towards the swagger, and to investigate an important aspect of the swagger psychology - his self esteem and his individuality.