88 THE CURIOUS LORE OF PRECIOUS STONES
New Zealand bore the name hei-tiki ("a
carved image for the neck"). The ornaments of this class are very rude
and grotesque representations of the human face or form, and were
generally regarded as schematically figuring some departed ancestor.
The head sometimes slanted right or left, so that the eyes, which were
very large and occasionally inlaid with mother-of-pearl, were on an
angle of forty-five degrees. These ornaments were prized not only as
memorials, but because, having been worn by successive ancestors, they
were supposed to communicate something of the very being of those
ancestors to such descendants as were privileged to wear the treasured
heirloom in their turn. In many cases, when the family was dying out,
the last male member would leave directions that his hei-tiki should be buried with him, so that it might not fall into the hands of strangers.73
So rare was this New Zealand jade, known to the Maoris as piinamu (green-stone), that the aid of a tohunga, or
wizard, was regarded as necessary to learn where it could be found. On
setting forth on a search for this material, the jade-seekers would
take with them a tohunga, and when the party reached the region where jade was usually found the tohunga would
retire to some solitary spot and would fall into a trance. On awaking
he would claim that the spirit of some person, dead or living, had
appeared to him and had directed to search in a particular place for
the jade. He would then conduct
™
The Bishop Collection. " Investigations and Studies in Jade," New York,
1906, vol. i, p. 12. Privately printed and edition limited to 100
copies. For a description of this monumental work see " The Printed
Catalogue of the Heber R. Bishop Collection of Jade," by George
Frederick Kunz, supplement to the Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum
of Art for May, 1906, Occasional Notes, No. 1..
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