Blogs by Ben Brown

Ben Brown • August 9, 2020

The greenstone door is a tohu; a potent symbol, of peace in the Māori world. It’s an idea, not an

artefact. Te Tatau Pounamu is a metaphor that allowed seemingly intransigent antagonists to

consider alternatives to war and ongoing conflict. It’s an arrangement in lieu of a battle.

Generational enemies could bury the hatchet by walking through the greenstone door. The

concept reflects a small part of the overall intrinsic worth of this taonga, this national treasure that

is Pounamu, whose value equates with life, yielding alliance and cooperation where bloodshed

seemed otherwise inevitable. Te Tatau Pounamu speaks to the inherent mana of the stone, of its

authority, of its strength, of a kind of spiritual power that seems to emanate from within it. We can

see as well how its physical characteristics; its depth of colour, its density and weight, its hardness

and durability, seems to reflect the character of the landscape from which it emerges, at once

beautiful and mysterious and enduring. But it’s this aspect of mana above all other qualities, that I

think best explains the place of Pounamu within the Māori world view and by extension, the

broader story that is New Zealand.

Mana begins with whakapapa. It is a....

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