Māori gum diggers

Māori gum diggers

This domestic scene is in a gum digging village in Northland, around 1910. Dinner looks to be potatoes and snapper. The whares (houses) are typical of the gumfields, which were open mānuka scrublands. There was little wood, so diggers built chimneys out of sods and used sacking for roofing and walls. Māori women, and their children when they were old enough, also often joined in digging and scraping kauri gum.