A love story, a blood stone and a rock star
A massive piece of greenstone is a huge part of Hohepa Mohi’s life, and connects many wha¯nau members. GeorgiaMay Gilbertson discovers the story behind the stone.
The first thing you notice about Hohepa Mohi is the kindness on his face, the second is the large, beautiful pounamu hanging around his neck.
The blend of golden greens is reminiscent of the sunshine glittering through the forest leaves of Te Urewera where Mohi grew up.
‘‘Let me tell you a story,’’ he says to me, as he’s likely been asked about the taonga around his neck many times.
Mohi, one of nine siblings, grew up in the heart of Te Urewera in the Bay of Plenty. Ma¯ ori was his first language and he didn’t learn English until he was 12.
Each time a member of the family is born, they get a piece of pounamu, chipped from a huge piece of greenstone, which sits in his grandmother’s garden in Rotorua.
The stone is close to a metre-anda-half long and half-a-metre high, and Mohi could only describe it. It could not be photographed as it is tapu.
The legend of where it came from dates back hundreds of years, when Mohi’s ancestor Tomairangi set out on a journey in the South Island looking for love.
‘‘He didn’t have any luck, so he decided to come up to the North Island and stumbled across the rock in a river before he left. He decided to call it ‘the bleeding heart’,’’ Mohi said.
‘‘The story goes that he somehow put it in his waka and travelled all around the North Island until he finally found love in Rotorua and the outcome was us.’’
Mohi said each pounamu given to family symbolised companionship between the rock and the individual.
Each time a piece is taken from the rock, it is laid on the person’s skin. If it warms up, it’s gifted to them. Mohi describes the process as similar to that of a christening.
‘‘Then you get one when you’re 21, as you enter adulthood. The whole idea of it is having something or someone with you, because although Tomairangi found love, he also found love in the stone during his travels.
‘‘The pounamu given to us connects us back to the stone and family.’’
Mohi said not all family members received pounamu as a necklace, as it depended on the cut they received from the rock.
‘‘There’s many different shapes and sizes, it just depends on what comes off the stone.
‘‘It’s gone through seven generations, so everyone in my family has one or two depending on how old we are, but some members have earrings as the cut from the stone was too small for a necklace.
‘‘The cut depends on the mood of the stone, and we do refer to it as a person, we call it toto, which means blood.’’
But where there’s treasure, there’s thievery, with Mohi estimating about six attempts by thieves who tried to steal the family’s taonga in the past.
‘‘They’ve all been unsuccessful. It won’t move. It wants to stay and it hasn’t moved from that spot since it was placed there.’’
Even though each piece comes from the stone, it’s not necessarily the right fit for each family member, with Mohi currently on his third necklace.
‘‘The first one gifted to me on my 21st unfastened from around my neck, fell and shattered on the
‘‘The cut depends on the mood of the stone, and we do refer to it as a person, we call it toto, which means blood.’’ Hohepa Mohi
ground.
‘‘They made a second one for me and that wasn’t right either because it disappeared and it was found by my sister, so she claimed it because it was meant for her.’’
The necklace Mohi currently wears is the biggest piece the stone has offered to any family member. ‘‘My grandmother explained the current one I have expresses the mana I have in my family.’’
The necklaces are made by the master carvers in the family, two of Mohi’s uncles who continue to pass the skills and tradition through the family.
Mohi estimated between 40-70 pieces of pounamu had been taken from the stone for family members.