(c. 1790–1869).

Ngati Whatua chief.

A new biography of Te Kawau, Apihai appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Te Kawa was the chief of the Ngati Taou hapu of the Ngati Whatua tribe and lived at Kaipara. As a young man he probably took part in the various tribal wars against the Ngapuhi. Marsden met him on 27 July 1820 when he boarded the Dromedary to sell spars cut from his forests on the Waitemata. Later, he accompanied Marsden when he made his survey of the Manukau Harbour. In June 1821, according to some authorities, Te Kawau took part in the defence of Mauinaina pa against Hongi Hika, but, if this were so, he must have been one of the few survivors of the siege. It is more likely, however, that he was then preparing for the famous Amiowhenua expedition in which he was the principal leader.

The Amiowhenua expedition was one of the longest ever undertaken by a Maori taua. Its pretext was probably no stronger than a desire to emulate the successful expedition made by Patuone and Te Rauparaha in the previous year. The party left One-one-nui (South Kaipara) toward the end of August 1821 and made its way across the Kaingaroa Plains to the headwaters of the Mohaka River. They crossed the main range into Hawke's Bay near the Titiokura Pass and continued down the Tutaekuri River before turning south-east into the Raukawa hills (to the south-west of Hastings). At Lake Te Roto-a-Tara (near Te Aute College) they captured an island pa belonging to the Ngai-te-Whatu-i-apiti tribe. The party then crossed the Ruataniwha Plains, but failed to reduce Horehore pa, near Takapau. They passed through the Seventy Mile Bush and took several small villages at Te Apiti in Manawatu Gorge before continuing through the Pahiatua district to Maungarake (near Masterton). Here they captured Hakikino pa. The party went on to Port Nicholson, where they took Tapu-te-Ranga, the Ngati Ira pa on the island in Island Bay. News of their presence preceded them, however, and they found that the Porirua and Waikanae Maoris had abandoned their settlements. At Otaki they attacked a Muaupoko pa, but were tricked into lifting their siege. The taua next invaded the Wanganui district, where one section was destroyed in an ambush at Mangatoa. The remaining sections, under Te Kawau, moved on through the Patea and Taranaki districts. They were attacked by a strong Ngati Awa force at Waitara and were obliged to entrench themselves in Pukerangiora pa. From Pukerangiora Te Kawau sent word to Te Whero-whero, who came from the Waikato to lift the siege. About this time news of Hongi's expedition into the Waikato reached Taranaki and the combined force hastened to Matakitaki pa, where Te Kawau assisted the defenders. The Amiowhenua expedition returned to Kaipara about June 1822, after having covered more than 1,000 miles.

Because he feared that the Ngapuhi meditated taking revenge upon those Ngati Whatua hapus which had taken part in the defence of Matakitaki, Te Kawau moved his people to Pukewha, on the Waipa River. They remained there until after Hongi's death, when they returned to their lands in the Auckland district. After this they came under the missionaries' influence.

In 1840 Te Kawau, who was now the paramount chief of the Ngati Whatua, invited Governor Hobson to visit the Waitemata district. He used all his influence to persuade the Governor to move his capital to Auckland and put land at his disposal for that purpose. In the later years Te Kawau lived at Orakei, where he became a close friend of Sir William Martin. He was baptised and took the name Apihai (Abishai). Te Kawau died at Ongarahu, Kaipara, in November 1869.

Towards the close of his life Te Kawau is said to have abhorred warfare and deplored his people's sufferings at the hands of the Ngapuhi.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

• Marsden Letters and Journals, Elder, J. R. (1932)
• Maori Wars of the Nineteenth Century, Smith, S. P. (1910)
• New Zealand Herald, 24 Nov 1869.

(Libocedrus plumosa, L. bidwillii).

These two medium-sized forest trees belong to the coniferous family Cupressaceae that is widely distributed, but to a genus within the family that is confined to New Caledonia and New Zealand. Kawaka occurs in lowland forest from Northland to the centre of the North Island and again in the north-west tip of the South Island, while pahautea occurs typically in wet forest at higher altitudes from about Auckland southwards. It is most common on the west of the South Island Main Divide. Both trees grow to 60–70 ft high, have slender boles, and are usually gregarious. A fine example of a forest almost dominated by pahautea at higher altitudes is to be seen south-east of Waiouru.

The bark falls away in long thin ribbons. Young trees are handsome and regular in shape. Leaves are small, scale-like, and appressed close to the branches. Those on juvenile plants differ from the adult leaves in being somewhat larger and borne on flattened branchlets. A twig from a young L. bidwillii is remarkably similar to a twig from an adult L. plumosa. The fruit is a small, scaly cone under 1 in. long. Timber is now scarce and rarely marketed. It is sometimes confused with totara (Podocarpus totara) which it resembles, but it is lighter in weight and darker in colour though, like totara, the heartwood is very durable. It splits easily and when available was used by the early settlers for shingles, fence posts and battens, and general building. It is still used in the central North Island for fencing material.

by Alec Lindsay Poole, M.SC., B.FOR.SC., F.R.S.N.Z., Director-General of Forests, Wellington.

Although the export price had risen to £61 a ton in 1900, good-quality gum was harder to find, and a market therefore developed for the poorer grades, used in the manufacture of linoleum. Fluctuations in export quantities, rather than prices, were noticeable over the next 20 years. The drop to 4,500 tons exported in 1915 was a result of the restricted European market during the First World War. In 1920 the United States bought 3,244 tons as against the United Kingdom's 2,544 tons, the average value being £86 a ton. Export prices dropped to £25 a ton during the depression of the thirties; and although unprecedented values were reached in the forties (£101 a ton in 1948), demand for gum became less. Quick-drying synthetics had superseded kauri gum in the manufacture of varnish. Substitutes were also used in linoleum manufacture, and low-grade gum failed to interest overseas buyers.

Since 1947, “range” or “pale” gum from high localities has been exported for use in the dental trade. One ton shipped to England in 1962 realised more than £300. This market takes only “bold” gum – clean pieces with the outer coat removed. There has been a revival in the use of “brown” gum, from swamps and low-lying ground, due to a demand from the United Kingdom, U.S.A., Italy, Germany, and Sweden. The last three countries use it in varnish.

The supply of fossilised kauri gum is not exhausted. Lumps are often turned up when new land is developed, and good-quality gum can bring a high price.

In 1961, 91 tons of kauri gum valued at £13,183 were exported; the 1964 exports were 53 tons valued at £11,481.

by Jeanne Hannington Goulding, Botanist's Assistant, Auckland Museum.

• Diary (typescript), Hobbs, J. (1848)
• Researches in Geology and Natural History, Darwin, C. (1839)
• The Gumdigger, Reed, A. H. (1948)
• New Zealand or Recollections of it, Markham, Edward, McCormick, E. H. (ed.) (1963).

The gumlands were generally unsuitable for farming after the diggers had finished. “Potholes” and trenches remained unfilled – “tailings” piled beside them – and the continual burning off of manuka and fern, left nothing but bare clay. Gorse, hakea, and other introduced weeds displaced the stunted manuka, and large areas were useless until modern machinery, lime, and suitable fertilisers were available for land development.

Gum was collected from the living kauris where it had lodged high up in the branches. There was a time when “bleeding” was practised too. Armed with climbing hooks, spiked boots, ropes, and tomahawks, men would climb the trees and cut V-shaped “taps”, 18 in. apart round the barrel of the tree at intervals of about 6 ft. The exuded gum was harvested every six months. “Bleeding” was discontinued in State forests when the Department realised that it was injurious to the trees.

A primitive apparatus, used in 1915, to extract fragments of gum from the soil, consisted of an iron tank with a perforated base, and a paddle on a shaft in the centre. Gum-bearing soil was shovelled into the tank, water poured in, and the paddle worked by hand until most of the soil had broken up and passed through the holes in the bottom of the tank. The remaining material was thrown into a heap, dried and hand-winnowed, to remove any fibrous matter, and the gum collected. Subsequently more elaborate forms of this “hurdy-gurdy” were used. A large machine was designed by C. Suttie to work swamp material, and was used near Dargaville. At Poroporo a steam plant was employed, and near Awanui a dredging plant installed. The vacuum-salt process, invented by J. S. Maclaurin, was recommended by the Kauri Gum Commission in 1921 as being the most efficient method evolved to remove dirt and foreign matter from kauri gum.

When all the kauri gum lying on top of the ground had been collected, Maoris and Europeans began to dig up the big lumps near the surface. Spades were the first implements of the gum-diggers; then the spear and hook were devised. The “gum-spear” was a long steel rod, tapering from one quarter of an inch thickness to a sharp point – the rod attached to a spade handle. An improved model, which went into the ground more easily, had a coil of fine wire fixed above the point. The “hook” – also fitted with a spade handle – was a length of inch piping with a steel hook welded on to the bottom of it. It was used to hook up the lumps of gum located by the spear. The spear and hook were particularly useful in swamps. A pikau, or sack, for carrying gum, completed the “tools of trade” of the early gumdigger. In 1885 about 2,000 diggers were at work, mainly in areas north of Auckland, although the best gum came from the Coromandel Peninsula. British subjects were able to procure licences (5s. a year) to dig on kauri gum reserves; private land owners charged £1 or more. Storekeepers who owned gumland insisted that gum dug from their land be sold to them or bartered for stores. The diggers scraped and sorted the gum. The highest export for any year was reached in 1899, with 11,116 tons.

By 1900, hundreds of Dalmatians – immigrants from Europe – were on the gumfields. They camped together in groups, digging the swamps in summer and the hills in winter. An increasing demand for poorer grades of gum, used in making linoleum, made it profitable to search for smaller gum: “nuts”, “chips”, “seeds”, and “dust”.

A small cargo of kauri gum arrived at Sydney in the schooner Brothers in 1815. The early traders exchanged nails and blankets for kits of surface gum collected by the Maoris. Edward Markham, walking from Hokianga to Kerikeri in 1834, saw lumps of kauri gum, and recorded in his Journal that “it requires so much oil to make it soft, so as to be able to pay the bottom of a Boat, or do the Outside of a House with it as renders it nearly useless”. Charles Darwin, writing about his visit to Waimate in 1835, said that kauri resin “is sold at a penny a pound to the Americans, but its use is kept secret”. It is claimed that James Busby and Gilbert Mair were the first to export gum to America about 1838. The Auckland firm of Brown and Campbell made early shipments to England (1844 or 1845). In 1848 kauri gum dissolved in “Oil of Wood” was mixed in paint – presumably for ships – at Hokianga. It was recognised overseas as a suitable resin for manufacture of a slow-drying varnish with a hard finish. In 1853, 829 tons of gum were exported, and over 4,000 tons, averaging £40 a ton, went overseas in 1870.

Before the European settlers came to New Zealand, the Maori had several uses for kauri gum, which he 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”.

Kauri gum is formed when resin exudes from a crack in the bark of the kauri (Agathis australis) and hardens on exposure to air. Pieces of various sizes, some weighing several pounds, collect in the axils of the branches and in the debris at the base of the tree. The colour of the gum ranges from pale yellow to reddish-brown and even black. Fossilised gum is harder, and usually paler and more translucent than that found in living forests. Buried at various depths, fossilised gum has been found on sites of long-extinct kauri forests. In the Auckland area it has appeared in strata older than the local volcanic rock. It is obtained north of 38° latitude, under lake beds, swamps, and sand dunes, as well as from higher ground. The discovery of two or three layers of gum in the gum-fields of the north indicates that a succession of kauri forests had flourished and disappeared centuries ago, each leaving its quota of gum buried at different depths.

Captain Cook in 1769 must have seen kauri gum on the beach at Mercury Bay, although he wrote in his Journal that the resinous substance he found there came from the mangrove trees. In 1819 Samuel Marsden reported pieces of gum lying on the ground near Ohaeawai, the site of intensive gum-digging 50 years later.