Pounamu can come in every colour of he rainbow and can have a beautiful translucency.
Miri mainly uses Tangiwai, also known as Bowenite.

It's legend as told by the elders has captured Miri's heart and imagination, each time she works with Tangiwai, transports her back to a place and time where mythical creatures roam the earth and a man's unending love transforms a stone into a wonder of nature. Pounamu is the traditional Maori name for a group of five stones found in New Zealand, including Jade (Nephrite) and Tangiwai(Bowenite). This stone is highly prized for it's strength and beauty. traditionally, it was used to create adornments and tools. this stone is also considered to be sacred, all cultures who used this stone considered it to be "of the Gods" Waitaha/Maori "the God stone", and chinese "the Stone of Heaven". It was also used by early cultures as a healing stone. the Greek word for this stone is "Nephrus" (kidney) and this culture bound nephrite against their kidney region. it is also a symbol of peace and mana (personal standing), and has the ability to give the wearer or carrier of Pounamu a feeling of peacefulness.
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The Legend of Tangiwai

Tama Ki Te Ra was deserted by his three wives, Hine-kawakawa, hine-Kahurangi and Hine Pounamu. No one knew where they had gone. Tama ranged vainly round the southern coasts. he called at Kaikoura where his crew found an abundance of succulent crayfish, naming the place Kai-koura-a-Tama-ki-te-rangi after the meal which Tama ate there.

Leaving Kaikoura he traveled round Murihiku, the end of the land, and sailed past the southern fiords. at Piopiotahi (Milford Sound) he heard a suspicious noise and paddled through the towering walls of the sound. there he found one of his wives turned into a translucent pounamu. he bent over the cold body; the tears ran down his face and onto the hard stone, penetrating it until the Tangiwai was flecked with tears.

Sorrow is for those who have departed, but life is for those who remain. Somewhere two other wives were waiting for their husband. Tama searched through every sound. His traveling cloak was torn to ribbons in the dense forest through which he passed, and the flax and kiekie and tangled shrubs of Fiordland have all sprung from the shreds of his tattered pokeka cloak.

Then he sailed northwards until, at the mouth of the Arahura River, he heard voices. They called on him, and the canoe followed the retreating song until it came to a waterfall and could go no further. The song was loud in his ears but he could find no signs of his wives. Little did he know that the boulders on which his hand had rested and the ledge beneath the water were the bodies of his wives and of their canoe which had overturned inthe singing river.

Tama abandoned his canoe and went sorrowfully on foot with his companion Tumu-aki until they came to the Kaniere Mountains. There they stopped and cooked birds for their evening meal, but Tumu-aki burnt his fingersand sucked them. In this way he destroyed his tapu, and for punishment he was turned into the mountain that bears his name, while tutaekoka, a variety of Pounamu, was named to remind them of the birds they cooked. tangiwai, Kahurangi, Kawakawa, Tutaekoka, these are the names of different kinds of Pounamu, which were lost to Tama-ki-te-rangi when he searched for his runaway wives and failed to find them.

Tangiwai. Tear water - A man's endless search for love.

To this day, traces of his tears can still be seen right through the stone's innermost core.

And during the cold winter months, along the coast of Piopiotahi, a faint voice can still be heard, desperate and hopeful, that love would live and warm his heart again.

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Tags: Greenstone, Pounamu,Tangiwai, Aotea, Kawakawa, Bowenite, Nephrite, Jade, Jewellery, Jewellry, South Westland, New Zealand.
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