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Ngā Tohuwhenua Mai Te Rangi: A New Zealand Archeology in Aerial Photographs

Kauri gum

page 240

Kauri gum

The gum-digging industry flourished in the years 1875-1925, 13 particularly late in the nineteenth century in a period of economic recession. It also appears to have been important in the 1930s depression. Gumlands had little other economic value at the time when gum-digging thrived because the soils are relatively infertile. It was an important activity throughout the greater extent of the Aupouri and Karikari Peninsulas and in the coastal dunelands as far south as the Kaipara. 14 The gum is found in sand country and in swamps, where it may occur in usable quantities up to a depth of many metres. Gum-digging was confined to regions where kauri flourished in the past, principally the area north of the Auckland Isthmus. The setting for this activity in the northern dunelands has been described in chapter 7.

The gum is the resin from the kauri tree, and enters the soil either by dropping off a living tree or when the tree falls naturally. It is relatively resistant to physical decay so it will accumulate in the soil over a long period of time and remain there even when the forest cover has gone. The gum-digging process was labour-intensive, especially once the easily accessible surface deposits had been taken. Long steel rods, 'spears', were used to probe into the soft deposits at some depth. If gum was detected, it had to be dug out by hand. The gum, after being extracted, was washed and put into sacks and sent to export or processing plants.

Gum-digging by individuals has left little pattern that can be seen readily in aerial photographs. The result in the landscape was very large areas of swamp and dune land with a great range of ill-shaped holes throughout and spoil heaps. Flying over the southern Karikari Peninsula, I noted that the ground surface and very shallow lake beds were pock-marked over extensive areas. Individual features are small and the pattern even in the aerial view is confusing and lacking in visual interest. In the far north the swamps or peatlands used were occasionally in the same areas as important landscape features such as pā. One such area is the Onepu Block 2 km north-west of Ngataki, where the pā complex, Tau-matawhana, lies on dunes above swamplands. Both pre-European garden trenches of the type discussed in chapters 4 and 7 15 and trenches of the 1930s gum-digging era can be seen in early aerial photographs.

Many ethnic minorities, including Māori, were involved with gum-digging. Most prominent in New Zealand gumfield history were 'Dalmatians', people from a coastal district of Croatia. They followed a kin-based work structure and were prepared to work poorer fields, specialising in what archaeologists term 'advance-face' excavations. A number of workers would dig in line at a face, as opposed to the digging of isolated holes, 16 stacking the peat and gum in long rows up to 2 m high. It was then washed, usually in winter when the water supply was assured, separating the peat from the gum. In the 1920s and 1930s, they used a mobile machine not unlike a large washtub. 17 The peat floated to the top of the rotating drum while gum was taken from a trapdoor at the side. This technique leaves a pattern of the spoil-heaps that can be detected in aerial photographs because of their regularity and great extent. The washing required an extensive system of water supply races and storage ponds. On the plateau above Ahipara, west of Kaitaia, the remains are not unlike the alluvial goldfields of Central Otago.