Page:Pounamu, notes on New Zealand greenstone (IA pounamunotesonne00robl).djvu/55



HERE is one special class of ornaments which, from their remarkable form, the extreme care lavished upon their production and preservation, and the feeling almost approaching veneration with which the Maori regarded them, demand detailed notice. These are the hei-tiki, neck-ornaments, grotesquely shaped as male or female human figures, which were worn by the Maori as memorials of specially dear relatives or venerated ancestors. The illustration (Figure 28) given on the next page is a full-sized drawing of a typical hei-tiki, shewing the front and back of the ornament.

The wearing of tiki by the Maori was as common as that of lockets among Europeans, and they were freely parted with as gifts or in exchange unless the value of an individual specimen consisted in the fact that it had been worn and handled by dead relations. If that were the case, reverence for the ancestor attached, as it were, to the ornament, which thereby became an object to be treasured as oha or an heirloom.

Canon Stack considers that the custom of carving and wearing hei-tiki was brought to their new home in New Zealand