A Guide to STRINE (or Australian slang)
Banana bender - a person from Queensland
BANANA-BENDER name given to Queenslanders ( as bananas are grown in that State).
Crow eater a person from South Australia
Newspapers:
Croweaters
An origin of the term "crow eater" is explored in the Register, 6 February 1925, page 13e:
[It] was first applied to some of the original settlers at Mount Barker who - whether from necessity or a desire to sample strange native fauna - killed, cooked and ate some crows disguised under the term "Mount Barker pheasants"... Later the term... was applied generally to all.
Also see Register, 18 and 22 December 1926, pages 15g and 12e:
The original croweaters were Western Australian not South Australians... Why [we] are called croweaters or by whom the name was originated I am at a loss to know... G.F. Moore [in his book on Western Australia] wrote (29/4/1832)"dined on four crows and a quail" and (1/5/1832) "shot a crow for dinner".
The following appears in the Register, 15 March 1927, page 12f:
In 1851 my father and uncle travelled overland to the Bendigo diggings. On their arrival they were accosted with the words "crow-eaters"... A short time before they arrived a party of South Australians had arrived in a very hard-up state... While crossing the 90-mile desert they run out of tucker and were forced to shoot crows for food... On relating their experience they were dubbed crow-eaters. The term was afterwards applied to every new arrival from the central State.