Terpentine Balm (Aceh)

Terpentine Balm (Aceh) (Dutch: terpentijn-balsem) was the resinous balsam obtained by tapping the Sumatra pine (Dutch: Sumatra-den, Pinus merkusii) of the residency of Atjeh in the early twentieth century, and was the source of two distinct commercial products: terpentine oil (Dutch: terpentijnolie), distilled from the raw resin and used in paints and solvents, and the residual solid balsam (Dutch: balsem or colofonium), sold as flat cakes for use in the batik industry and paper manufacture. The tapping of the Sumatra pine was one of the small-scale forest-based industries of the Atjeh interior, and the trade complemented the broader resin and forest-product economy of damar, bakau bast and kapok.

The Sumatra pine and its range

The Sumatra pine — Pinus merkusii, Dutch: Sumatra-den — is the only pine species native to the Southern Hemisphere and the only one indigenous to the Indonesian archipelago. Its natural range in the Netherlands Indies extended from the Gayo uplands of northern Sumatra through the Tapanoeli highlands to the Kerintji and Barisan mountains of central Sumatra, with a separate population in the northern Philippines. The species thrives on the well-drained volcanic soils of the highland slopes at altitudes of 900 to 1,500 metres, where the cool climate and well-marked dry season favour its growth, and the natural stands of the Gayo uplands around Takèngön formed the principal Atjeh resource for the terpentine-balsam trade.

The tree was first identified and described by the German-Dutch botanist Junghuhn in the 1840s, and was subsequently recognised as a distinct species of considerable economic potential for its resin yield. The colonial forest service (Dutch: boschwezen) began experimental tapping of the Sumatra pine in the late nineteenth century and developed the systematic exploitation of the resource in the early twentieth century, both in the natural stands of the Gayo uplands and in the experimental pine plantations (Dutch: dennenplantages) established on degraded grasslands at various highland sites in Sumatra.

Tapping and distillation

The production of terpentine balsam followed a three-stage process:

Tapping (Dutch: tappen): The bark of the pine was stripped in a series of horizontal V-shaped cuts (Dutch: tapsneden) about 5 to 8 centimetres wide and 1 to 2 centimetres deep, descending the trunk in successive years. A galvanised-iron gutter (Dutch: tapgoot) and a small earthenware cup (Dutch: tapbakje) were fixed below each cut, and the milky resin (Dutch: gom or hars) that exuded from the wound was collected weekly during the tapping season, which extended through the cooler months of the year. A mature tree could yield 2 to 4 kilograms of crude resin per season, and a tree could be tapped for 15 to 20 years before the panel reached the base of the trunk.
Distillation (Dutch: destillatie): The collected resin was conveyed to the distillery (Dutch: destilleerderij) and heated in a copper still (Dutch: koperen distilleerketel) with a small quantity of water. The volatile terpentine oil (Dutch: terpentijnolie) vaporised at about 156 degrees Celsius, was condensed in a coiled condenser (Dutch: koeler), and was collected as a clear, colourless, highly flammable liquid with the characteristic sharp aroma of turpentine. The yield of terpentine oil was typically 15 to 20 per cent of the crude resin by weight.
Solid balsam (Dutch: balsem or colofonium): The residual solid left after distillation was a hard, pale, glassy resin — rosin or colophony (Dutch: colofonium) — which was poured into flat moulds (Dutch: vormen) and cooled into flat cakes (Dutch: platte koeken) of approximately 1 to 2 kilograms each, ready for sale.

Uses and economic role

The two products of the Sumatra pine served distinct industrial markets:

Terpentine oil (Dutch: terpentijnolie): used principally as a solvent in the manufacture of paints, varnishes, and lacquers, and as a raw material for the synthesis of camphor, synthetic perfumes, and a range of pharmaceutical preparations. The oil was exported in tinned drums to the paint and chemical factories of the Netherlands and Batavia.
Balsam cakes (Dutch: balsem-koeken): used in the batik industry (Dutch: batik-industrie) of Java, where the rosin was dissolved and applied to the textile to resist the dye in the batik wax-resist process; and in paper manufacture (Dutch: papierfabriekatie), where the rosin was added to the pulp to provide the “size” that gives writing paper its resistance to ink-bleed. The balsam cakes were exported principally to the Javanese batik centres of Yogyakarta and Surakarta and to the European paper mills.

The trade was small in absolute terms but locally important, providing cash income to the forest-edge villages of the Gayo uplands and employing a small workforce of tappers and distillery operators at each processing site. The Gajoweg and the Atjeh tram made it easier to move the packaged oil and balsam cakes from the highlands to the export ports of Belawan and Sabang.

Decline and legacy

By the 1930s the Atjeh terpentine-balsam trade had contracted under the combined pressure of the depression, competition from cheaper American and French turpentine, and the gradual substitution of synthetic solvents for natural terpentine oil in the European paint industry. The surviving Gayo pine stands continued to be tapped on a reduced scale through the 1930s, and the trade limped through the Japanese occupation of 1942 and the Indonesian revolution before being absorbed into the state forest corporation of the post-independence period. The Sumatra pine itself has since been widely planted as a plantation timber species across the Indonesian highlands, and the surviving natural stands of the Gayo uplands remain a protected forest resource.

Sources

Atjeh-terpentijn: tegenwoordige kwaliteit en nieuwe beoordeelingen, by Ir. W. Spoon, Berichten van de Afdeeling Handelsmuseum van de Koninklijke Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut No. 57, Amsterdam: J. H. de Bussy, 1930, pp. 5–8, 12–14, 19 (Winning van de terpentijn; Scheikundige samenstelling en eigenschappen; Toetsing aan de ontwerp-normalisatie-eischen).

Bijdrage tot de kennis van Pinus Merkusii Jungh et de Vr., meer in het bijzonder in de Gajo-landen, by C. Brandts Buys, C. Japing and D. Fernandes, Mededeeling no. 19 van het Proefstation voor het Boschwezen, 1928.

Source

DLP-84-Atjeh.pdf, pp. 14-15.

tags	concept, industrial-product, acehnese, colonial, export-crop, resin, tree, pine, sumatra, aceh, gajo-landen, terpentijn, 19th-century, 20th-century, colonial-forestry
aliases	Terpentijn-balsem, Balsam, Turpentine balm, Atjeh terpentijn, Sumatra-den, Pinus Merkusii, Sumatran pine, the Sumatra pine, the Atjeh pine, Jungh et de Vr.

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