Kauri resin
Kauri resin (English: kauri gum ) is the resin of the kauri tree in New Zealand, obtained from fossil deposits or tapped from living trees . The resin from fossil deposits is also known as "Kauri- Copal ".
Kauri forests used to cover a large part of the northern part of the North Island of New Zealand . Climatic changes, volcanic activity and earthquakes, but in particular the deforestation of most of the forests by the European settlers led to the disappearance of most of these forests, some of which became sand dunes , bushland or swamp. The fossil resin chunks remaining on these areas as well as the few remaining forests served as a source for the resin.
The kauri resin emerges from cracks in the bark and hardens on contact with air. The chunks of resin got to the ground and were covered with soil and parts of plants and eventually fossilized. Other clumps formed in places where new branches formed or the tree was damaged.
The color of the resin depends on the condition of the tree it came from and how long it was in the ground. The color ranges from chalk white to reddish brown to black. The most sought-after variety is golden yellow, hard and translucent.
The size of the lumps also varied widely. Small “nuggets” known as “chips” were often found in swamps. Larger clumps were found on the slopes of hills. The majority of the lumps were about the size of an acorn, but some lumps weighing several kilograms were also found. The largest known find weighed about 25 kg.
Kauri resembles amber in some features , a fossil resin that occurs mainly in the northern hemisphere. However, while amber is several million years old, fossil kauri resin is only a few thousand years old according to age determinations using the radiocarbon method .
use
The Māori used the resin kapia for many purposes. Fresh resin was used as a type of chewing gum . Older resin was made softer by soaking it in and mixing it with the juice of the thistle puwha . The resin is highly flammable and served as a fire lighter and was wrapped in flax and used as a torch . With animal fat mixed combustion residues were as a pigment for moko - Tattoos used.
Kauri, like copal, was traded from other sources for the manufacture of varnish. Kauri was particularly suitable for this and was exported to London and America from the mid-1840s . Individual exports had started a few years earlier, back then as glue for shipbuilding and fire starters . In 1814, Kauriharz was part of a shipload to Australia .
Since kauri mixes more easily with linseed oil than other resins at low temperatures , 70% of the varnish made in England was made from kauri resin in the 1890s.
To a lesser extent, the resin was used for the manufacture of paints in the late 19th century. From 1910 onwards, large quantities of linoleum were used. The market for the resin declined since the 1930s as it was replaced by synthetic alternatives. As a niche product, it was used in jewelry production and as a high-quality special lacquer for violins .
Kauri gum was Auckland's main export commodity in the second half of the 19th century and was the basis for much of the growth in the early stages of urban development. 450,000 tons were exported between 1850 and 1950. 1900 marked the pinnacle of the Kauri resin market with a trading volume of 10,000 tons valued at £ 600,000 . Average annual exports were over 5000 tonnes at an average of £ 63 per tonne.
Extraction
Deposits
Most of the deposits named gumfields were in the Northland region , on the Coromandel Peninsula and around Auckland . Initially, the resin was easily accessible and was often exposed on the ground. James Cook reported lumps of resin on the coast of Mercury Bay in 1769 . He suspected, however, that they came from mangroves . The missionary Samuel Marsden reported in 1819 about resin deposits in Northland.
By 1850 most of the lumps visible on the surface had been collected and they began to be found in the ground. On the slopes of hills the resin was only about one meter deep, in swamps and on the coast it could be over four meters deep.
Gumdiggers
Gumdiggers were men and women who excavated the kauri resin in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The life of a gum digger is wretched, and one of the last a man would take to. (The life of a gum-digger is miserable and one of the last things a man would choose. - Report of a buyer, 1898
The term could also be the origin of the nickname "Digger" for New Zealand soldiers in the First World War to be.
The Gumdiggers dug for resin clumps in the old kauri fields, mostly covered with swamp or bush. Often it was migrant workers who moved from field to field and lived in makeshift huts or tents, which were called " whare " after the Māori name for a house . The work was hard and not well paid. Nevertheless, it attracted many Māori and Europeans including women and children. Among them were many Dalmatians who had come to work in the gold fields of the South Island during the Otago gold rush in the 1860s . These were less settlers than migrant workers and a large part of their income was sent home. This caused a lot of resentment among the local workforce. In 1898 the "Kauri Gum Industry Act" was passed. This limited mining to British subjects and required a license from all other graves. In 1910 only British subjects could hold such licenses.
The mining of kauri resin was a very important source of income for the settlers in Northland , the farmers often worked on the gumfields in winter to supplement their meager income from the as yet undeveloped land. In the 1890s, 20,000 people were mining kauri resin, including 7,000 full-time employees. The work in kauri mining was not limited to settlers and workers in rural areas. Auckland families took a ferry across Waitemata Harbor over the weekend to dig at Birkenhead . In doing so, they damaged roads and farms, so that the local council had to introduce regulations.
Mining methods
Most of the resin was obtained using gum spears (sharpened wires to find the clumps) and skeltons ( sharpened spades that cut through the soil as well as through old wood and roots). The lumps were then scraped off and cleaned.
Mining in swamps was more complicated. Often a longer spear, up to eight meters long, often with barbs at the end, was used to pull the clumps up. The bushland was often burned down before mining. Some of these fires got out of hand and burned for weeks.
Holes up to 12 m deep were often dug and some wetlands were drained to make mining easier.
When the fossil resin ran out, "bush gum" was obtained by cutting the bark of kauri trees. A few months later they returned to collect the resin. Because of the damage to the trees from pruning and climbing the trees with the help of spikes and hooks, this method was banned in the State Forests in 1905.
Gum chips , small lumps suitable for the linoleum industry, were difficult to find, so in 1910 the soil was washed and sifted. This method was later mechanized.
trade
The Gumdiggers mostly sold their resin to local buyers, who mostly made it by sea to Auckland and sold it there to traders and exporters. There were six major kauri exporters in Auckland who employed several hundred people sorting and preparing the resin for export. The resin was packed in kauri wood boxes for export.
As early as the 1830s and 1840s, traders such as Gilbert Mair and John Logan Campbell were buying the resin from the Māori for as little as £ 5 a ton or in exchange for goods.
Most of the resin went to America and England, from where it was sold in Europe. Smaller quantities also went to Australia, Hong Kong , Japan and Russia .
museum
The Kauri Museum in Matakohe deals with kauri wood and the extraction and processing of kauri resin. The museum has the world's largest collection of kauri resin.
literature
- Bruce W. Hayward: Kauri Gum and the Gumdiggers: A Pictorial History of the Kauri Gum Industry in New Zealand. Lodestar Press, Auckland 1982, ISBN 0-86465-014-0 .
- Margaret McClure: The Story of Birkenhead. Birkenhead City Council, Auckland 1987, ISBN 978-0-908704-04-0 .
- Alfred Hamish Reed : The Gumdiggers: The Story of Kauri Gum. AH & AW Reed , Auckland 1972, ISBN 0-589-00732-7 .
Web links
- Carl Walrond: Kauri Gum and Gum Digging . Ministry of Culture & Heritage , November 9, 2012, accessed January 20, 2016 .
- Gum Diggers . diggerhistory.info, archived from the original on September20, 2010; Retrieved on September 19, 2012(English, original website no longer available, link to WaybackMachine from September 20, 2010).
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Hayward, p. 4 f.
- ↑ Te Ara Encyclopedia of NZ: Kauri Forest .
- ↑ a b Hayward, p. 2.
- ↑ a b Encyclopedia of NZ, 1966: Kauri Gum .
- ^ Reed, p. 20.
- ↑ a b Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand: Origins and uses .
- ↑ Hayward, p. 3.
- ↑ a b c Hayward, p. 46.
- ↑ a b Hayward, p. 45.
- ^ Te Ara Encyclopedia of NZ: The Industry .
- ^ Reed, p. 114.
- ^ In: Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives. 1898, H-12, p. 31, cited in Te Ara Encyclopedia of NZ .
- ^ Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand: The New Zealanders .
- ^ Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand: Gumdigging .
- ↑ Te Ara Encyclopedia of NZ: Damaltions .
- ^ Te Ara Encyclopedia of NZ: Dalmatians: Gumdiggers .
- ↑ Hayward, p. 47.
- ↑ McClure, pp. 55 f.
- ^ A b Te Are Encyclopedia of New Zealand: Gumdigging methods .
- ↑ Hayward, p. 10 f.
- ↑ Hayward, p. 12 f.
- ↑ Hayward, p. 27 ff.
- ↑ Hayward, p. 19.
- ↑ Hayward, p. 42 f.
- ↑ Hayward, p. 44.
- ^ Website of the Kauri Museum (English) .