Before the Europeans found New Zealand, the Maori collected stones which they found useful, and the most useful of these were jade and argillite. (In case you might be wondering, New Zealand seems not to have any useful quantities of flint.) Both argillite and jade are very hard and made excellent tools, but jade (which the Maori called POUNAMU, green stone) had the literal edge. For it is tough as well as hard, and could take a sharp cutting edge which lasted and didn't chip too easily. Equally a blunted edge could be re-sharpened with easily available sandstones.
Whilst it didn't flake too well (which argillite did), the Maori found other ways of making it into artefacts. Time consuming and laboriously. Dry, hardwood wedges were hammered into cracks and crevices, the dry wood doused with water - and then hopefully the swelling opened the crack further. No crack? They make one using string made from native flax (phormium phormium) dipped in fat and garnet sandstone and pulled it back and forth ... or light a good fire at the jade boulder and throw water over the hot stone. When they finally hacked off the bit of jade, the real work began in earnest, using sandstone files and saws, wooden drills with the end dipped in fat and garnet gravels, and rotated between the hands (they did eventually use a gadget like an Archimedian drill made of twigs, bound with flax, and the 'fly wheel' was weighted with stones.)
Then the weeks of cleaning up and finally polishing (diatomaceous earths when they could find it). In the end what did they have? Beautiful, efficient knives, adzes, hand axes, carving tools, even fish hooks, amulets, large flat clubs capable of taking off the top of a man's head at one blow (so they could get at the brains in certain cases!) Often used too as a badge of high office.
Some of their pre-European carvings have to be seen to be believed. And I have watched a Maori demonstrate wood carving using greenstone tools, when the chips came away much like those from expensive steel tools. One man had fitted a flat blade of beautiful jade to a modern spokeshave and this was producing shavings just like those from an ordinary sharp steel spokeshave. Argillite couldn't be used like that and it was just about the only alternative, though it was used a lot. Can you imagine the value such jade tools had at that time? Those tools were almost venerated and were certainly handed down over the generations. But where could they keep them safely from loss? Well; drill a hole in them and hang them around the neck until needed. So the men and women had jewellery made of jade, but it was almost all of practical use in their everyday lives.
So it isn't surprising that firstly the maker of such immutable heirlooms would be regarded with considerable awe. But also came the thought that these men who had the tools were mostly chiefs and 'nobles' ('RANGATIRA') who gathered great MANA for their wisdom and prowess in battle. So then it isn't surprising that these artefacts absorbed the wearer's mana until they attained a value that became very great indeed. Like a set of Crown Jewels, for instance, and how could you price such objects in money?
So, to this day, most makers and carvers (jadesmiths?) are usually loath to part with their products, even though they were made with diamond; saws, drills, grindstones, polishes, and the original boulders were transported from their remote hiding place to 'civilization' by helicopter and then road vehicles. Jade carvers and lapidarists have a certain affinity - a 'feeling' - for their pieces which isn't the same as when they produce something in other than jade. I simply have no words to explain it. I feel it. So when I make a jade item, the new owner is always told the Maori philosophy, boiled down to: "Don't put it away in a drawer; wear it often and proudly and behave in such a manner for it to gain great mana over the years."
Cheers for now,
John Burgess
Mapua, Nelson NZ