Kauri gum

Kauri resin (English: kauri gum) is the product obtained from fossil deposits or tapped from living trees of the resin Kauribaumes in New Zealand. The resin from fossil deposit is also referred to as " Kauri copal ".

Kauri forests covered earlier a large part of the northern part of the North Island of New Zealand. Climatic changes, volcanic activity and earthquakes, but especially the deforestation of most forests by European settlers led to the disappearance of most of these forests, some of the surfaces were sand dunes, scrub or swamp. The remaining on these surfaces fossil resin chunks 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 exposure to air out. The resin chunks came to the ground and were covered with soil and plant parts and eventually fossilized. Other lumps formed in places where formed new branches or the tree has been damaged.

The color of the resin depends on the state of the plant from which it originated, and by the time it was in the ground decreases. The color ranges from reddish brown to chalky white over black. The most common cultivar is golden yellow, hard and translucent.

The size of the lump varied greatly. In swamps were found frequently small " nuggets ", which were known as "chips ". On slopes of hills were found rather larger lumps. The majority of the clumps reached about the size of an acorn, there have also been found a few more pound lump. The largest has become known Fund weighed about 25 kg.

Kauri is similar in some features to the Bernstein, one occurring in the northern hemisphere fossil resin. While Bernstein, however, is several million years old fossil Kauri resin is by age determinations with the radiocarbon method, only a few thousand years old.

Use

The Māori used the resin Kapia for many purposes. Fresh resin was used as a kind of chewing gum. Mature resin was it softened by soaking in and mixed with the juice of the thistle puwha. The resin is highly flammable and served as a fire starter and was wrapped in flax used as a torch. The blended with animal fat combustion residues were used as a pigment for moko tattoos.

Kauri copal traded like from external sources for the production of varnish. Kauri was especially suited for this and exported from the mid 1840s to London and America. Individual exports had a few years earlier, then as an adhesive for shipbuilding and fire starter. 1814 Kauri resin part of a ship's cargo to Australia.

Since Kauri resin mixes easily than other resins at low temperatures with linseed oil, 70 % of the varnish produced in England was created on the basis of Kauri resin in the 1890s.

To a lesser extent in the late 19th century, the resin was used for the production of paints. From 1910, large amounts were used for the manufacture of linoleum. Since the 1930s, the market for the resin decreased as it was replaced by synthetic alternatives. As a niche product, it was further used in jewelery and as a high-quality special varnish for violins.

Kauri gum was the most important export commodity in the second half of the 19th century Auckland and was the foundation for much of the growth in the initial phase of urban development. Between 1850 and 1950, 450,000 tons were exported. 1900 marked with a trading volume of 10,000 tons with a value of £ 600,000 the peak of the market for Kauri resin. The average annual export amounted to about 5,000 tons for an average of 63 pounds sterling per ton.

Extraction

Deposits

Most of the gumfields mentioned deposits were located in the region in Northland, on the Coromandel Peninsula and around Auckland. Initially, the resin was easily accessible and was often free on Earth. James Cook reported 1769 resin lumps on the coast of Mercury Bay. He suspected, however, that they were from mangroves. The missionary Samuel Marsden reported 1819 resin deposits in Northland.

In 1850, the most visible on the surface clumps were collected and began to dig for them in the ground. On the slopes of hills, the resin was only about a meter deep, in swamps and on the coast it could lie deep to over four meters.

Gumdiggers

Gumdiggers were men and women who dug out the Kauri resin in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The life of a gum digger is wretched, and one of the load- a man would take to. ( The life of a gum - diggers is miserable and the last thing a person would choose -. Reporting for Buyers 1898

The term could also be the origin of the nickname " Digger" for New Zealand soldiers in World War 1.

The Gumdiggers dug on the old, mostly covered with swamp or bush Kaurifeldern of resin lumps. Often there are migrant workers who moved from field to field and lived in makeshift huts or tents, which were named after the name of the Māori for a home " whare ". It was hard work and she was not well paid. Nevertheless, it attracted many Māori and Europeans, including women and children. Among them were many Dalmatians who came in the 1860s during the Otago gold rush to work in the gold fields of the South Island to the country. These settlers were less than migrant workers and a large part of their income was sent home. This caused much resentment among the local workforce. 1898, the " Kauri Gum Industry Act " was passed. This limited the reduction to British subjects and demanded from all other graves a license. 1910 could only British subjects have licenses.

The degradation of Kauri resin was a very important source of income for the settlers in Northland, often the farmers worked in winter on the gumfields to supplement their meager income from the undeveloped land. In the 1890s, 20,000 people were engaged in the mining of Kauri resin, including 7,000 full-time employees. The work in Kauriabbau was not limited to settlers and workers of rural areas. Aucklander families went on the weekend by ferry across the Waitemata Harbour to dig in Birkenhead. They damaged roads and farms, so the council had to introduce regulations.

Mining methods

Most of the resin was washed with the help of gum spears ( tipped wires to the search for the lump ) and skeltons ( sharpened spade, who cut both through the soil and through old wood and roots) won. Subsequently, the lumps were scraped off and cleaned.

The reduction in swamps was more complicated. Often a longer, up to 8 m long spear was used, often with barbs at the end to pull the clumps up. Before removing often the bushland was burnt down. Some of these fires got out of control and burned for weeks.

Often you dug to 12 m deep holes and some wetlands were drained to facilitate degradation.

As the fossil resin ran out, you won "bush gum" by cutting the bark of Kauri trees. A few months later returned to in order to collect the resin. Because of the damage to the trees through the incision and the climb trees using spikes and hooks, this method was banned in 1905 in the state forests.

Gum chips, small, suitable for linoleum industry lumps were hard to find, so that in 1910 began to wash the soil and to seven. This method was later mechanized.

Trade

The Gumdiggers sold their resin mostly local merchants of which it is usually managed by sea to Auckland, and sold there to traders and exporters. There were six significant in Auckland Kauri exporters who employ several hundred people with the sorting and preparation of the resin for export. The resin was packed for export in boxes made of Kauri.

Already in the 1830s and 1840s as traders bought Gilbert Mair and John Logan Campbell, the resin of the Māori for just £ 5 per ton, or in exchange for goods.

Most of the resin went to America and England, from where it was sold in Europe. Smaller amounts went to Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Russia.

Museum

The Kauri Museum in Matakohe Kauri discussed alongside the extraction and processing of Kauri resin. The museum has the world's largest Kauri resin collection.