The Colonial Reinvention of the Hei Tiki: Pounamu, Knowledge and Empire, 1860s-1940s

This thesis examines the reinvention of pounamu hei tiki between the 1860s and 1940s. It asks how colonial culture was shaped by engagement with pounamu and its analogous forms greenstone, nephrite, bowenite and jade.   The study begins with the exploitation of Ngāi Tahu’s pounamu resource during the West Coast gold rush and concludes with post-World War II measures to prohibit greenstone exports. It establishes that industrially mass-produced pounamu hei tiki were available in New Zealand by 1901 and in Britain by 1903. It sheds new light on the little-known German influence on the commercial greenstone industry. The research demonstrates how Māori leaders maintained a degree of authority in the new Pākehā-dominated industry through patron-client relationships where they exercised creative control.   The history also tells a deeper story of the making of colonial culture. The transformation of the greenstone industry created a cultural legacy greater than just the tangible objects of trade. Intangible meanings are also part of the heritage. The acts of making, selling, wearing, admiring, gifting, describing and imagining pieces of greenstone pounamu were expressions of culture in practice. Everyday objects can tell some of these stories and provide accounts of relationships and ways of knowing the world.   The pounamu hei tiki speaks to this history because more than merely stone, it is a cultural object and idea. In this study, it stands for the dynamic processes of change, the colonial realities of Māori resistance and participation and Pākehā experiences of dislocation and attachment.   The research sits at an intersection of new imperial histories and studies of material culture. The power of pounamu to carry multiple meanings and to be continually reinterpreted represents the circulation of colonial knowledge, and is a central contention of the thesis.