The hei tiki is a small personal adornment, fashioned by hand from tough pounamu (New Zealand greenstone or nephrite jade), and is worn around the neck. Hei means something looped around the neck, and tiki is a generic word used throughout Polynesia to denote human figures carved in wood, stone, or other material.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original content at https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1659/hei-tiki/.