The Maori, New Zealand’s Indigenous folks, navigated to the nation from Polynesia by sea, some arriving as early because the tenth century. Matau, or fishhooks, have been amongst their instruments, long-established from wooden, bone, shell, stone — and pounamu, the Maori identify for New Zealand jade or greenstone.
Over time, the hooks turned more and more stylized and now are a preferred form for ornamental pounamu pendants referred to as hei matau, the primary phrase indicating that the matau is worn across the neck. Creators say a hei matau provides the wearer power, security and good luck for journey, particularly throughout oceans.
There’s a frequent perception in New Zealand that pounamu must be acquired solely as a present. “We don’t know the place that situation got here from, nevertheless it’s actually not one thing from my folks,” mentioned Lisa Tumahai, the kaiwhakahaere, or consultant, of the tribe Ngai Tahu, based mostly on the South Island. “Since earlier than the settlers got here, we have been buying and selling pounamu and we have been economically affluent from it.”
A Hero’s Story
The matau has deep roots not solely in Maori historical past but in addition in a number of the tradition’s best-known tales. Elementary school-age youngsters in New Zealand study that Maui, a hero of Polynesian mythology, used a woven fishing line and a hook long-established from his grandmother’s jawbone to haul New Zealand’s North Island — generally known as Te Ika a Maui, or the Fish of Maui — out of the ocean. Maui was so happy along with his catch, the story says, that he threw his hook into the sky, the place it caught among the many stars. The constellation Scorpio typically is known as Maui’s Fish Hook in Maori astronomy.
The Geology
Pounamu is mostly really nephrite, a semiprecious mineral. Nephrite is fashioned about six miles underground, the place the warmth and stress create an extremely laborious stone, making pounamu helpful to early dwellers for instruments. (Iron and chromium deposits account for its distinctive inexperienced hues.) Bands of pounamu have been lifted to the floor as mountains fashioned over hundreds of thousands of years on New Zealand’s South Island, which the Maori name Te Wai Pounamu, or the Place of Pounamu. Over time, erosion has uncovered deposits and the boulders and stones tumble into the island’s many rivers, the place they’re both gathered or ultimately wash into the ocean.
Loss, and Restoration
Within the 18th and nineteenth centuries, settlers from Britain and Europe pushed Maori off their land and discouraged the usage of their language, and by the Nineteen Fifties legal guidelines and laws prevented their carvers from accessing and dealing pounamu. Later, items of jade jewellery carved with Maori designs typically have been imported from China. “Our folks carried on carving,” Ms. Tumahai mentioned. “By no means to the size that we’d have had within the 1800s, however we by no means misplaced the craft.” In latest many years, New Zealand’s authorities has made settlements with iwi, or tribes, to get better what was misplaced — and in 1997, a legislation declared that iwi Ngai Tahu was kaitiaki, or guardian, of all pounamu, making it the one privately owned mineral within the nation. At present, together with promoting or distributing the stone (1,800 yearly) to carvers and cultural our bodies and managing an accreditation course of, Ngai Tahu runs a pounamu jewellery enterprise.
A Valuable Stone
New Zealand’s modern-day legal guidelines acknowledge pounamu (pronounced poe-nuh-moo) as a taonga, or treasure, for the Maori folks. “With out the taonga, we don’t have life, so now we have to provide respect to it,” Ms. Tumahai mentioned. A few of New Zealand’s 5 million residents put on hei matau, and plenty of of its guests — 3.8 million in 2019 — purchase them as souvenirs. However some vacationers have been “horrified,” Ms. Tumahai mentioned, after they realized their purchases didn’t have the authentication particulars current on jewellery made from legally sourced pounamu. “We simply say a karakia and bless their stone,” Ms. Tumahai mentioned, utilizing the phrase for a Maori prayer.
The New Era
As a boy on the South Island’s West Coast, Shannon Mahuika thought carving was the area of outdated males but in addition felt that Maori artwork ran in his blood. He left faculty at 15 to work for his father, who made and bought easy pendants, then spent three years in formal coaching at Te Puia, the nationwide Maori arts and crafts institute in Rotorua, beneath the famend carver Lewis Gardiner. He was one of many first college students on the institute’s stone and bone carving faculty, a selective program that accepts functions solely from Maori males. (At the moment, Ms. Tumahai mentioned, there are 200 to 300 pounamu carvers within the nation, about 120 of whom are registered with Ngai Tahu and about 70 of whom are actively working.) Mr. Mahuika, 33, now lives and works in a former faculty on a lonely stretch of West Coast freeway, simply minutes from Makaawhio, a river wealthy in pounamu. “To be on the doorstep of the supply of the pounamu, it looks like safety of my future,” he mentioned. Mr. Mahuika usually buys his stone provides, however typically he takes his keen nieces and nephews to the river to seek for it, as his father did with him.
Making Hei Matau
Conventional photos and tales — in addition to new concepts — encourage Mr. Mahuika, who initially sketches his designs with pencil on paper. He then cuts a stencil to put on the stone, and makes use of diamond instruments to form it. A bench grinder helps create the curves and element, and diamond burrs of various sizes and styles are used to complete the design. Every instrument leaves abrasive scratches on the stone, Mr. Mahuika mentioned, and he spends as lengthy cleansing a hei matau — smoothing out the carving marks — as he does crafting it. It’s common for a bit to take two days to carve and one other two days to scrub, just like the piece proven right here, which shall be priced at 720 New Zealand {dollars}, about $500. “I can’t discover it in me to hurry it,” he added. His items are all one-of-a-kind and he sells by means of social media and by direct request.
Defending Pounamu
In latest many years New Zealand has skilled a revival of curiosity in Maori arts and tradition — together with pounamu jewellery. “There wouldn’t be a day go by after I don’t see folks sporting it,” Ms. Tumahai mentioned. However on the identical time Ngai Tahu has been battling a rising black marketplace for the stone; on the authorized market, it sells from about 30 New Zealand {dollars} per pound for the poorest high quality to about 500 {dollars} per pound for the very best. Uncooked pounamu can’t be exported legally, however the iwi is aware of it’s being smuggled onto industrial flights and in freight. And even supposing many carvers stopped working when the pandemic started and New Zealand closed its borders, the quantity of pounamu provided for illicit sale on internet boards and social media platforms had elevated, Ms. Tumahai mentioned, as folks have been “determined” for cash. A conservation plan created by the iwi with enter from New Zealand’s geological science company ought to imply that provides won’t be in peril of depletion — however nobody is certain, Ms. Tumahai mentioned, as a result of nobody understand how a lot has been eliminated illegally.
Source link
