Pendant (Hei-tiki) (1800s): Art, History and Details

Pendant (Hei-tiki) (1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Among the Māori, leaders are hereditary and imbued with mana, power and prestige that can be embodied and passed down in the artworks associated with them. Hei-tiki are among these treasured, mana-charged heirlooms, which connect the living to ancestors of the islands’ pre-European past. They may represent Hine-te-Iwaiwa, a legendary ancestress who is the exemplar of Māori womanhood and the patron of childbirth.

Object facts

• Title: Pendant (Hei-tiki)
• Date: 1800s
• Culture: Polynesia, New Zealand, Maori people, 19th century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: nephrite (greenstone)
• Dimensions: Overall: 11.2 x 5.5 cm (4 7/16 x 2 3/16 in.)
• Collection: Oceanic Art
• Department: Oceania
• Accession number: 1954.147

A detail from the museum

Hei-tiki may represent Hine-te-Iwaiwa, a legendary ancestress who is the exemplar of Māori womanhood.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Frost, Natasha. "He Calls the Tie a 'Colonia Noose.' Now Parliament Says It's No Longer Mandatory." The New York Times (February 10, 2021).

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.