By Norman Allison Millar (1.3.2.6. YOUNG.)
Received from Joyce Millar (Witten) (1.3.2.6.1.), Hamilton, April 1990
At the turn of the century work in the Kauri forests was totally different to the bush work of the presented day. Bush men lived in a bush camp. Each hut had about thirty men. The clothes worn were denims, square headed sprigs in ankle boots, boewangs around the calf of the leg (for fern), and two flannel shirts. One a light woollen undershirt, the other a heavy woollen worn outside the trousers, covering the hips. This flannel keeps the back dry in quite heavy rain, quite necessary when you consider that the men worked ten hours a day, rain or shine.The highest pay in dollars, was three dollars per week, no clothes provided. The food was plentiful. The meat not fresh as it only arrived once a week and there were no freezers. It was hung in a tree or in a safe of sheet-iron.
The bed bunk mattresses were made of a springy creeper called mungemung which creaked every time you turned over , and harboured fleas and dust.
The men worked hard and to hear the men snore was really something. The fireplace was the width of the hut and the men hung their clothes around the fire in the smoke to dry. Some of the men declared that they could tell their own clothes by the smell.
Checkers and card were the only pass time although sometimes a man had a mouth-organ or accordion to liven up the evening.
The men could lift big Kauri logs up hill by means of timber jacks, bullock teams and sometimes pulled by wires from a stationary engine. The logs were floated down to a boom. There were put into rafts and floated to sawmills. in the cities.
In the out skirts of Paeroa, farming was like slavery. One milker could milk 20 cows by hand. One good milker milked 8 cows per hour. There was no concrete and no gum boots. The cows walked into the milking, shed up to their bellies in mud. The milk was taken to a creamery to be separated and the skim milk was taken home to feed to the calves and pigs.
My early days at farming was without much money for improvements. When ploughing, I ploughed into the Maori copper of Maori ovens (there must have been a Maori Pa on this site previously) scattered over several acres. I also ploughed out nine Maori chisels, stone ones, one nine inches long. The axes did not seem of any value at the time and they found their way into offices for paper weights and to keep the door open. The heavy one on a rope to close the garden gate. Two went overseas as souvenirs.
The dam or weir at the source of a river is built by the bushman using little less than blasting powder to blow a hole into a cliff to take the stringers for the dam. Kickers are from trees up to about four feet thick and anything up to six feet long. The shaping of the timber for the dam is all fashioned with the axe. The axe in the hand of a bushman is a very versatile tool. I have seen bushmen chop a scarf into a tree and it was almost as smooth as if sawn. To cut the big Kauri 12 feet through, one bushman stood each side of the tree, and one left-handed, the other righted. They could chop for hours without a spell. They could fell these giant trees exactly where they wanted them. The doors of the dam opened almost across the dam so that a huge volume of water floated the logs down stream while the river was in flood. On the very big trees 25 feet across, side scarfing was needed.
Much Kauri timber was wasted. because of the cheapness of the timber. The head of the Kauri tree had much good timber but when a tree was felled, the log to the first branch was used, perhaps only 60 feet of log. No log was used that had brunches on the side. The Kauri tree had no branches until the tree was above the neighbouring trees. There were no creepers on a Kauri tree. The Kauri sheds its leaves and creepers are also shed. Some of the bushmen climb the Kauri up to 150 feet with climbing irons on their boots and a small axe; one in each hand. They can climb as fast as a man can walk. They climb to get the clean Kauri gum from the forks of the head of the tree. Some of those men stand up and walk along the branches. They carve books, roses, brooches and make picture frames with a pocket-knife.
To get horses to break in the land, I took on training young horses so that I got paid to train the horses and at the same time used the same horses to break in my pastures. To drain the land, take out the timber and plough the land was a slow process compared with the machines now. It was a back breaking task, poorly paid, long hours, slow but sure progress and always with a sense of achievement. It’s a challenge that leaves very little time for leisure, but is good for family life in that all the family were involved. When there was relaxation, the whole family relaxed together.
When I look back, I am amazed that we worked by candle-light. Got dressed, cooked the evening meal, shaved and read books by candle-light.
The Maoris of the early days sat around on the kerbside of the gutters in the town where I went to school. They were dressed in many kinds of clothes.The women in men's hard-hitter hats smoking pipes, and as always quit talking as soon as pakeha came near them, or if speaking English, immediately breaking into the Maori tongue. The early Maori seemed always to look sad. He could not read or write and the world must have been .a strange place. The early Maori away, from the towns had no comforts. He slept on the ground and had no furniture. I have been in their whares made of nikau palms or rapu. The floor was tramples hard. In the middle of the hut was the fire. The children slept around the fire on flax mats on the floor. They got used to the smoke which kept the whare free from mosquitoes. The food was cooked and eaten outside. I can remember a Maori boy and myself catching shrimps and small fish and eating them raw. They were tasteless. One incident stands out - I was talking to a Maori boy and two Nuns came along. He almost turned white and said “po rangi tipo” and did he run! He thought they were ghosts.
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