Newfoundland's frankum is the hardened resin that oozes from spruce trees in Newfoundland, collected and rolled into a ball and then chewed like gum. It is chiefly from Black Spruce (Picea mariana), the provincial tree of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Visit Earl J. S. Rook's excellent website for details about Black Spruce. http://www.rook.org/earl/bwca/nature/trees/piceamar.html The definitive description appears in the folklore archives at Memorial University and is quoted in the second edition of The Dictionary of Newfoundland English (University of Toronto Press, 1990). These are the reminiscences of W. Copper of St. John’s : “Spruce trees excrete a sap which hardens into a whitish or honey-coloured substance of a dry, brittle texture. We called it frankum. If pried off the tree with a knife, usually in lumps about the size of marbles, and put into the mouth, one can chew it into a fine, dry powder. [One keeps chewing and] saliva works it into sticky lumps [again.] Eventually it will be just like chewing gum.” Here's another gum-witness account from Earl J.S. Rook's website: Bill Nelson from Michigan reports, “When I was young, an old timber cruiser told me that at one time all chewing gum was made from Black Spruce. One can make it themselves by gathering the black spruce gum and putting it in a double boiler and heating it. When it becomes liquid, pore it into a shallow pan of cold water. The bugs and other impurities will float to the top. When it hardens, pour off the water and sprinkle some corn starch over it. Then cut it into pieces and you have some fine natural chewing gum.”
Etymology of Newfoundland Word Frankum Newfoundland's frankum is a clipped form of franckumsence, itself a dialect version of frankincense. The famous gifts of the Magi to the infant Christ were gold and frankincense and myrrh. Frankincense was the dried, sweet-smelling, milky sap of Boswellia trees which grew in Arabia and parts of Africa. When burnt as incense in small, yellowish-white chunks, it gave off a balsam-like aroma most pleasing to the ancients.
In the Old Testament, the always stern Book of Leviticus states that frankincense is holy to the Lord God and must only be used in offerings to Jehovah. Ancient Egyptians smeared frankincense on the strips of winding linen in which mummified bodies were wrapped and set chunks of it burning in processional thuribles or censers, so that the balsamic aroma might both comfort mourners and mask any unkingly reek of death. Incense containing frankincense was found in Tutankhamun's tomb. The substance is still used in religious ceremonies by the Parsees, cultural descendants of the Wise Men.
Frankincense is a Medieval French compound, franc encens ‘free incense,’ that is, the pure incense. Franc also meant ‘of high quality’ in Medieval French.
Olibanum & the Etymology of Libanum The Medieval Latin term for frankincense was libanum borrowed from Hellenistic and Koine Greek libanos. The Greek is a transliteration of the Hebrew word, itself cognate with Arabic al-luban, a word that contains the common Semitic root denoting the colour white, named because the gummy resin dries into white lumps and in such form frankincense was imported into ancient Palestine as a temple incense. Frankincense resin is known too by a Latin name as olibanum, also derived from the Arabic al-lubán (‘the milk’ or ‘the white stuff’) a reference to the milky sap of the Boswellia tree. A less compelling etymology suggests olibanum stems from an Arabic phrase for Oil of Lebanon since Lebanon was one place where the resin was traded to Europeans. In Exodus 30:34 frankincense is called levonah, meaning either "white" or "Lebanese" in Biblical Hebrew.
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