Opium Pipe, c.1860-1870s. Photograph Stephen Thompson

Collection
Museum of the Riverina, Wagga Wagga, Australia.

Object Name
Opium pipe.

Object/Collection Description
Opium pipe. Brass, silver and wood with an impressed Chinese inscription on the top section. 160mm high x 10mm wide x 10mm deep.

The discovery of gold in New South Wales from the early 1850s saw a huge influx of migrants in search of instant wealth. The primary result of the Gold Rush was that the economy boomed and, for a short time, gold outstripped wool as the Colony’s primary export. Many of the people who came in search of gold were Chinese men. Drawn from their home villages (mainly in Kwangtung) by the first gold rushes in Victoria, California and New South Wales in the 1850s, they usually arrived in organised groups of 30 to 100 men. In 1861 there were about 13,000 Chinese in New South Wales with the majority (12,200) on the gold fields. Throughout the 19th century, Chinese arrivals continued to the mining regions of New South Wales, replacing those who had returned home or left for opportunities elsewhere.

‘Delightful dissipation.-the ladies’ opium-smoking club’,Police News, April 21, 1877. Courtesy State Library of Victoria

The Chinese diggers moved from goldfield to goldfield within New South Wales and across the border. Constantly on the move, their presence and experience are evidenced mainly from the observations and interpretation of Anglo-Australians, from archaeological digs and from objects saved by families and community members. There are few written accounts and sources from a Chinese perspective. The object is a rare one providing a Chinese perspective on life on the gold fields. The Chinese attracted particular attention and local newspapers were quick to comment on their distinctive features, clothes, languages and habits – especially their tendency to travel en masse – their methods of transport, their diligence, tirelessness and productivity. Any admiration of their work ethic was offset by envy and resentment when times got hard. The Chinese were often scapegoated by disgruntled Anglo diggers as seen in the violent anti-Chinese riots at Turon (1853), Meroo (1854) Rocky River (1856) Tambaroora (1858) Lambing Flat, Kiandra and Nundle (1860 and 1861) and Tingha tin fields (1870). They were seen initially as oddities, later as rivals and then as threats to white Australia. Towards the late nineteenth market gardeners and shopkeepers were accepted in everyday life, but suspicions remained and it didn’t take much for racism to bubble to the surface as evidenced in the Hillston riot in 1882.

Flemington Melbourne, Samuel Charles Brees, c.1856. Courtesy State Library of Victoria

Gambling and smoking of opium were singled out in a raft of complaints against the Chinese as the greatest threat to white Australia. From early on Chinese gambling was criticised for the negative effect on the Chinese communities, for the fights and arguments it provoked and particularly the negative influence on Europeans who took part. It also diverted the gaze from the variety and extent of gambling in white Australia. These criticisms prevented onlookers from seeing the role and reason for gambling and opium smoking in the Chinese community; the roles of leisure activity, the predominance of males in the local Chinese population, the isolation from surrounding social activities and familiarities with tradition brought from China and the need to spend time with fellow countrymen.Opium smoking was part of the way of life for many Chinese in the 19th century in China. It was an activity which dated back to at least the 1700s and ironically received its greatest boost thanks to the activities of the British East India Company which, from the late 1700s, began to import great quantities into China where the company found a lucrative market. For the Chinese, opium became a symbol of foreign intervention and attempts to ban the trade resulted in what became known as the Opium Wars. The Chinese lost and through the treaties of Nanking (1842) and Tientsin (1858) were forced to ensure that Chinese ports remained open to opium.

‘Washing Tailings’,Ten Australian Views, c.1870s. Courtesy National Library of Australia

Opium smoking and its paraphernalia followed Chinese migrants overseas. In the Chinese camps which grew in and around towns in regional New South Wales, regular reference was made to opium dens and opium sales. The comments were often hysterical, although a large number of Europeans did argue that opium smoking was a non-threatening leisure activity among the Chinese.

Opium was also present in New South Wales as a component in medicines. Addiction for non-Chinese often came through the consumption of these, although throughout the 19th century an increasing number of Europeans took to smoking opium.

Opium smoking was legal in New South Wales until 1906. For the Chinese, the reasons for smoking opium varied. For some it was a habit brought from China. For others it provided a means to survive the trials and demands of a hard day’s labour, a means to relax and perhaps to go to sleep and a focus for social interaction. For Europeans it could offer a means of escape and relaxation, a pleasant alternative to alcohol, something exotic and different.

A variety of objects were associated with importing, storing, preparing and smoking opium. Fragments of jars and pipes are occasionally found in archaeological digs and are represented in public museums and private collections.

Initially, opium could be purchased at the local grocery. However, after opium was banned in 1906, demand slowly dropped off and throughout the 20th century it went underground, into the hands of smugglers and criminals. It was only when the opium smokers themselves were no longer around that the opium trade into New South Wales and Australia slowly died out.

The opium pipe is part of a series of regional collection of objects integral to the story of the Chinese on the gold fields and the establishment of regional Chinese communities. Their historic significance lies in their relationship to the themes of the Gold Rushes experience, racial antagonism and fear of the exotic and unknown, Australia’s links to Britain and the development of racial discrimination policies after Federation.

The pipe has aesthetic significance relating to the design and manufacture of 19th century opium consumption. The opium trade was an open and legal activity in the 19th century and the packaging gives an insight into a relatively unknown culture.

The pipe provides a research tool for historians to explore the culture of the Chinese on the gold fields, in the Riverina and the New South Wales region. Objects such as these have already provided invaluable evidence for the Golden Threads Project exploring the experiences and world of Chinese communities in 19th century regional New South Wales. The opium pipe is evidence of the closed culture and forced isolation of the Chinese on the diggings, and was later were used as evidence on which to base hysterical racial slurs against the Chinese in order to further isolate, victimise and drive them out of the camps or townships. These slurs provided the basis for the racist logic of the White Australia Policy.

The Chinese in regional New South Wales are predominately related to the early migrants to the gold fields. Objects such as this opium pipe (and other objects in related collections), provide a tool for these communities to recognise and acknowledge their ancestors and to rise above the inherent racism that was dealt out to the 19th century diggers. Projects such as Golden Threads and the Museum of the Riverina’s From All Four Corners: Stories of Migration to Wagga Wagga provide a binding influence on an already strong and proud community and provide the incentive to speak out, to tell the stories of their ancestors and reveal other significant objects in their own collections. These objects have a resonance right across regional New South Wales and Australia.

This opium pipe was donated to the Museum of the Riverina and has been in the collection ever since.

This type of object is quite rare because a lot of the material culture of the Chinese on the gold fields either ended up in mine tailings or rubbish holes or was simply destroyed. An extended collection of material related to the Chinese in the Gold Rush is in museums and private collections across regional New South Wales. This opium pipe is a good example of a number held in collections in New South Wales and a rare one provenanced to the Riverina in a public collection.

The opium pipe represents the culture and traditions of the Chinese miners and it demonstrates the rituals of opium smoking lost in Australia today. They are evidence of the culture and practices they brought with them to New South Wales. They are also evidence of the British domination over China through the trade of opium by the British East India Company and the cool stand-off between China (and Asia) and the West ever since. The pipe is evidence of the source of hysterically racist slurs by Anglo-Australians against the Chinese, seeking to run them off the diggings, camps and towns. It was these myths and slurs that formed the basis of the White Australia Policy. When a newly Federated Australia saw itself vulnerable to apparent threat from Asia, as an offshoot of Britain in the Pacific it sought to keep the Australian population Anglo.

The condition of the pipe is excellent given the rarity and fragile nature of the fabric. Importantly, the inscriptions are intact and the Chinese characters still legible. It is significant that such objects remain in good condition, intact and in the region they have an historical association with.

The opium pie is a powerful interpretive tool in communicating the experiences and the treatment of the Chinese on the diggings. It also provides evidence of the history of the relationship between China and the West in general, the influence of the British mercantilists on Chinese culture and the adoption of opium smoking as a cultural habit. The opium pipe, in unison with Chinese objects in other regional collections including the Golden Threads Project, communicates the stories of the Chinese in regional New South Wales.