Complete tea set made out of kauri !
The Kauri Museum was quite a discovery.. globs of golden gum from these huge trees, were left in the soils and swamps of Northland over thousands of years.
In the 19th century this gum became a major export, and prospectors flocked to New Zealand to find it and make their fortune, but digging gum was a tough way to make a living.
The caption for this photo should be "By gum!" - this boy has found a big one - no wonder he's smiling. But life inthe photos shows it was generally hard and poverty stricken for the gum diggers.
The hardened gum has been put to many uses over the years, collectors have spend lifetimes creating objects and some of the pieces are beautiful, very similar to amber.
Even a kiwi carved out of gum
The girls could both sit inside a kauri stump comfortably!
The gum has been collected for years by individuals, who, when they died bequeathed it to the Museum - there are millions of dollars worth here!
Imagine carving a Mauri chief from this piece of gum!
The Maori had several uses for kauri gum, which they collected from the surface of the ground.
It made good fuel, and was also carried alight as a torch. The soot from the burnt gum was used in the tattooing process.
Fresh gum was chewed, and sometimes softened by heating before becoming “chewing gum”. Bet the Americans don't know that!
Europeans used the gum for varnishes, linoleum and resins for musical instruments..
Besides digging gum fortune hunters could create gum by chopping the heart from the tree and collecting the gum as it oozed out and baking it to harden it..
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