The variety of
Kahurangi
Treasured translucent pounamu
Kahurangi is the rarest and most prized variety of pounamu — a translucent, flawless light green whose name evokes a clear sky. To hold a piece of true kahurangi is to hold a small window of green light.
Where it comes from
Kahurangi is found in the same rivers as kawakawa, but only in a small fraction of the stone recovered. Most boulders carry flecks, lines or cloudy inclusions — kahurangi is the part that does not. A single tonne of pounamu may yield only a few hundred grams of true kahurangi.
Because of its rarity, kahurangi is treated by carvers as a stone to be earned. Master carvers will hold a kahurangi piece for months before deciding what it should become.
How to recognise it
Kahurangi is bright, pale to mid-green, and clearly translucent — light passes through it visibly. The colour is even, without dark veins, and free of the streaks and clouds common in other varieties.
Polished kahurangi has a luminous, almost liquid quality. The te reo name itself — kahurangi — carries the sense of a treasured thing and of a clear sky overhead.
How it is carved
Because the stone is so clean, kahurangi is most often used for fine, delicate forms — small koru, pikorua, or simple drop pendants where the translucence can be seen. A heavy carving would mask the very quality that makes the stone exceptional.
Kahurangi is rarely sold; it is usually commissioned. When it is gifted, it carries great weight — the recipient is being given something the carver could just as easily have kept.
Kahurangi is pounamu at its most generous — a stone that gives its colour back to the light, and asks the carver to do as little as possible.