Nephrite jade was considered more valuable than gold or silver. Nephrite jade in New Zealand is known as "pounamu" in the Māori language, and is highly valued, playing an important role in Māori culture. It is considered a "taonga", or treasure, and therefore protected under the Treaty of Waitangi. The exploitation of it is restricted to Ngai Tahu and closely monitored. The South Island of New Zealand is "Te Wai Pounamu" in Māori — "The [land of] Greenstone Water" — because that is where it occurs. Weapons and ornaments are made of it; in particular the "mere" (short club), and the
Theory of forms word "matter" is derived, shaped by receiving (or exchanging) forms. The English word "form" may be used to translate two distinct concepts that concerned Plato—the outward "form" or appearance of something, and "Form" in a new, technical nature, that never...assumes a form like that of any of the things which enter into her; ... But the forms which enter into and go out of her are the likenesses of real existences modelled after their patterns in a wonderful and inexplicable manner... The objects that are seen, according to Plato, are not real, but literally "mimic" the real Forms. In the