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12 25th, 2008| 
Bats and beaked birds, plaques and pendants, and even jade inserts and fillings for the teeth, club heads, ear ornaments, lip and nose plugs, and almost any other object imaginable were produced by the thousands. All of it perished in the sudden onslaught of a foreign culture. The subsequent poverty and prostration of all the native cultures erased a good part of what was left—even the memories.
Another Stone Age culture began to develop the use of jade at some unknown time after settlement of the two islands of New Zealand about A.D. 1000. The Maoris found jade there and promptly put it to use for work purposes. They needed good knives, hatchets, and fish hooks above all else and had little thought of making ornaments until much later. Then, these tools themselves became the first amulets. A curious and strangely contorted human figure—the Hei-tiki—with cocked head, lopsided eyes, and bowed legs, was also worn as a pendant. It and a few other carved fishhook and serpent forms are just about as far as this jade culture was able to go before the world of the European intruded with the arrival of Captain Cook in 1769. Today jade is cut in New Zealand by descendants of the same people, using power tools and carborundum drills, not the primitive tools of their ancestors and loose diamonds.
All over the world the age of the jade cultures is finished. Now it is just another art form pursued by collectors and connoisseurs. Even so, the strong attraction of this beautiful and magic stone persists. One can judge it by the sudden scarcity of raw jade and by the escalating prices of the finished carvings of quality in the market place.
Utilitarian jade was still in evidence up to the end of Aztec times. Jade wedges, spears, axes, and knives, like those made in the earliest times, remained in use right up to the sixteenth century. Central America never really moved from the stone age to the metal age. Metal drills and metal tools were never used for jade-carving chores. As a matter of fact, even the rotary drill—extensively used—never was perfected beyond the simplest twirling of a hollow bamboo reed between the hands.
With bamboo reed, wood polishers, and abrasives of quartz sand, crushed jade, garnet, and hematite, the New World carvers managed to produce a marvelous assemblage of objects. Figures of gods, such as Kinich Ahau, the Sun God; Xolotl, the horrifying guide for the dead through the underworld; and the winged serpent god were three of many. Jaguar and skull carvings were typical examples of a tendency to accentuate the terrifying and grotesque. Ceremonial axe gods, roughly in the shape of an axe blade, had the upper half carved in a figure and the lower part in a curved blade.
To all the Central Americans the magical values of jade depended more on its color and rarity than on any of its mineralogical properties. At the same time, its superior carving characteristics were recognized. It was the Aztec government which inadvertently left the strongest clues as to the sources of their jade. Each ruler in his turn prepared a tribute roll on which each town was listed, along with the taxes expected from it. Certain towns were consistently required to send jade. As the demand for jade continued to increase, the sources of supply were disappearing. Jade became so precious that larger, older carvings were sometimes hollowed in the back to remove material for new carvings used for loose diamonds.
Jade in this part of the world was put to the same general tasks—everyday use, ornamentation, and religious symbolism—as in China. Miguel Covarrubias, in his book The Indian Art of Mexico and Central America, describes the famous royal burial tomb at Palenque, in Chiapas, Mexico. It illuminates perfectly the religious and ornamental uses of jade: “The personage for whom the tomb was constructed, whose crumbling bones were found in an enormous, massive sarcophagus hollowed out of a single block of stone, was covered with objects of jade which gleamed in brilliant green on the layer of red cinnabar with which the corpse had been painted. On his head he wore a band, garnished with large jade spangles; the locks of his hair were held in place by jade tubes; his face was covered by a magnificent mask of jade mosaic with eyes of shell and obsidian; and on his ears he wore a pair of jade earplugs incised with glyphs. His shoulders were covered with a great collar of rows of tubular jade beads, and around his neck there was a precious necklace of beads in the form of calabashes alternating with jade blossoms. His wrists were bound with long strings of jade beads forming cuffs, and on each finger he wore a jade ring, nine of them plain, one carved with the most exquisite delicacy in the shape of a little crouching man. He held a great jade ball in one hand, a square dice of jade in the other. There was a fine jade buckle or loincloth ornament, and by his feet was a jade statuette of the sun god.”
All sorts of attempts have been made to link the Central American and Chinese jade cultures by seeking out the few details that are similar. It is fairly obvious, however, that the two developed independently. There is still considerable confusion about the boundaries in time and space of the various Central American cultures, so that carvings and carving styles attributed to one could just as well have been passed on from another. Unfortunately, there is a tendency to associate jade with the Aztecs, because they treasured it so highly and offered it as gifts when the Spaniards arrived, a fact duly recorded by several contemporary authors. bridal jewelry was a big thing back then. However, all the cultures—Olmec, Mayan, Toltec, Mixtec, Zapotec, and Aztec-treasured it from the beginning, until the carvings were plundered and the art destroyed by the Spanish. The Mayas probably treasured the green stone as long as any group. At the height of their production, carvers were turning out ear plugs, wristlets, anklets, and beads. Many of these objects were decorated with human and animal figures, as well as with a beautiful heiroglyphic script. By the time the Spanish arrived, the Mayan culture had already begun its decline, but there was a thriving colony of Aztec lapidaries which had transferred the art to what is now Mexico City. Even in the beginning, good jade must have been scarce. Material authentically dated from earlier times, before the Aztecs and Tol-tecs, was better in color and in the uniform quality of its texture. The Spanish found only finished carvings in the possession of the natives, never any rough jade. These Aztec carvers had been very much aware of differences in color and quality. Quetzal chalchi-huitl was the term describing precious jade which was white with a greenish tint. Tlilav-otic chalchihuitl was green and black. Best of all was Tolteca-iztli, a clear, translucent green.
The carving skills and techniques of the ancient Central American cultures never approached those of the Chinese. There is no question that aesthetically and artistically, the imaginative carvings of the western hemisphere have just as strong an impact as any made on the other side of the world. Ample archeological evidence points to a thriving jade-carving art among the Olmecs of the Gulf of Mexico region several centuries before the Christian era. Carbon-dating measurements push the date back to 1500 B.C. It would seem that the Chinese and Olmecs developed and perfected all the fundamental carving skills at about the same time. Many of these Olmec jade carvings have been passed down to us because they were safely buried. Among the best-known of them are the bold and impressive near-human masks and figures of jadeite. There was little attention given to anatomical detail in these very simple carvings, but the mood of a weeping child’s figure, a fearsome man-jaguar mask, or a woman’s face resigned to suffering, comes through very clearly. While almost everything else belonging to the Olmecs has perished, their splendid carvings assure them of a place in the history of man.
Li T’ieh-kuai is always shown as a crippled beggar with a crutch. He had the misfortune of returning in spirit too late from the Celestial Regions to prevent his empty body from being destroyed. Hastily he entered the body of a dying beggar, which body became his own for the rest of his earthly life.
Lan Ts’ai-ho is an epicene figure, dressed traditionally in a blue gown, whose custom was to wander the streets singing songs about the joys of immortality. He-she (legend seems to make him male) is always depicted carrying a basket of flowers, and often with one foot resting on a spade. It was used for diamond hoop earrings
Buddhism also contributed its own images, so that it became customary in Ming and Ch’ing times to carve Buddhas, Lohans, and Bodhisattvas. There are innumerable Buddhas, including the traditional Shakya-muni (Lord Buddha), Maitreya (the Laughing Buddha), and Ananda (the Teaching Buddha). The eighteen Lohans, or followers of Buddha, have been amply treated in jade, too. Best loved of all followers of Buddha are the Bodhisattvas. They are the ones who reached the peak of spiritual perfection, but spurned the final reward to stay behind and help their fellow men. The currently popular Kwan Yin was one of these. She is usually carved as a graceful, serene, gentle figure.
In a brief survey of the seemingly interminable centuries of Chinese jade carving, which produced such a wealth of aesthetically excellent and superbly carved jade objects, there is nothing visible which prepares us for the incredible flowering of the art under the reign of Emperor Ch’ien Lung during the Ching Dynasty. All of the ingredients were there, however, and it took only the proper stimulus to bring the burgeoning about. Apparently, the Emperor was a man with a highly developed appreciation of the aesthetic possibilities of jade. Personally he seemed to prefer small but beautifully carved objects in white jade, but became a patron and strong promoter of numbers of the largest, most ornate, most perfectly carved jade objects ever produced. Many excellent copies of the ancient bronze forms were produced in the royal carving shops and bore the imperial seal. The nephrite and jadeite rough material was the finest available, and the carving was meticulously done. Everything that wealth and skill could do was done to insure the quality of the final product. When Ch’ien Lung finally ended his reign in 1795, it seemed that jade carving and other typically Chinese arts entered a period of abrupt decline. The story of jade did not end, but its period of greatest glory was over. With the end of the Ching Dynasty and the fall of the Manchu princes, and with the coming of the republic in 1912, hundreds of the finest carvings disappeared from the Imperial treasuries and households. Also many diamond earrings dissapeared. Many have since surfaced with European dealers, and have made their way into fine private and museum collections here and abroad. Large numbers of them are still in hiding and may reappear at some more propitious moment in history. However long we wait for them, it will be a short period in the long saga of Chinese jade carving.
The Kuei, Ch’ang, Hu, and Huang are all flat, like the Pi, but unlike the Ts’ung. Possibly derived from the shape of a primitive knife blade, the Kuei was rather plain in its early versions. A symbol of the East, or Spring, and of Imperial Power, it became customary to carve symbolic figures on its face. The Twelve Branches, The Twelve Ornaments, and any number of other potent figures have been used for such decoration. Unfortunately, the form and origin of the South, or Summer, worshiping jade is somewhat of a mystery because no authentically identified Ch’ang is known.
There has been a decided change in the Hu from its beginning form. It started as a flat, primitively formed tiger which is hardly recognizable as we think of tigers now. Strangely, it is one of the very few animal symbols dating to before the Han Dynasty. Primarily an object of worship for the West, or Autumn, the Hu has also been used as a symbol of military power or authority. This concept adds deeper meaning to the epithet “paper tiger.”
Basically, the Huang is half a Pi and was for worship of the North, or Winter. For embellishment it gradually became customary to carve the curved, flat object as a dragon, or fish.
As if all the symbols mentioned were not enough, China accumulated increasing numbers of them through the long centuries. Buddhism brought along the Eight Happy Omens and the Seven Gems. Taoism added the Eight Emblems of the Taoist Immortals. There are the Hundred Antiques, the Eight Precious Things, and other groups. Further, there are many individual symbols such as the swastika, which represents Buddha’s doctrines or, more often, Buddha’s heart, and the lotus flower representing Buddhist enlightenment.
The forms of the jade carvings themselves are often as significant as the symbols inscribed on them. Perhaps best known of the ancient carvings of significant form are the Six Ritual Jades. The Book of Rites, believed to have been originally by Chou Kung about 1100 B.C., helps us to understand much about early religious practices. Translation of a passage from the book in its fourteenth-century edition by Li Ki tells us:
With a sky-blue Pi worship is paid to Heaven
With a yellow Ts’ung to Earth
With a green Kuei to the East
With a red Ch’ang to the South
With a white Hu to the West
With a black Huang to the North. The Pi, symbolizing Heaven, is a simple, flat, circular disk with a round hole in the middle. A Ts’ung is much more complex, but just as beautiful in form. In its simplest version it is a hollow cylinder carved in such a way that it appears to be inserted into a rectangular box of square cross section. The carving skills and dedication required to form a Ts’ung were far greater than for a simple Pi. As with most of the Six Ritual Jades, the original reasons for the particular forms are obscure, but from earliest times the Ts’ung has symbolized the earth. Later, when it became traditional to use these jades for burial purposes, the Ts’ung was placed on the chest and the Pi at the back, placing the departed squarely between heaven and earth. Check also design your own engagement ring.
The Yang-Yin symbol is one of the easiest to recognize and understand. It represents the two opposite, conflicting forces found in every action, and which are responsible for the dynamic universe. Yang is male, positive, and represented by the Sun. Yin is female, negative, and represented by the Moon. The Yang and Yin operate in the universe primarily through the agency of the five elements: Earth (Saturn), Water (Mercury), Metal (Venus), Wood (Jupiter), and Fire (Mars). These elements under the guidance of the five planets form, with the Sun and Moon, the seven rulers. Jade can be used for different diamond ring settings. Each of the elements may also be Yang or Yin, so that combinations of all these could produce broad number possibilities and astrological alternatives. Each, of course, has its symbol which can be, and often was, incised into jade. There were several other groups of symbols of great antiquity to go with these. One of the best known is the group of twelve ornaments. The origin of these is lost in time. They consist of the Sun, Moon, stars, mountain, dragon, flowery fowl, temple cups, aquatic grass, flames, grains of rice, hatchet, and symbol of distinction. Rank determined the priorities for wearing the carved ornaments, and the emperor alone had the right to wear all twelve.
Another set of designs often transmitted to posterity, inscribed in everlasting jade, were the Eight Trigrams. They make little sense now, but seem to have been designed to link the Yang-Yin principle with the five elements. The symbols consist of a series of eight symmetrical arrangements of long and short bars arranged in a circle or open square. These symbols are perhaps the most ancient of all, predating Taoism and possibly originating as far back as 2600 B.C. They have been in continuous use by jade carvers since 1100 B.C.
Although no one knows the earliest techniques and tools for sure, rubbing-sticks of various designs, sand abrasive, and quantities of time and patience were all that the ancients seemed to use. Introduction of the rotary drill made it possible to add dimension and detail to the carvings, and to make hollow objects, such as vases and snuff bottles. These were— and are—always hollowed out before outside surface work on the carving begins. For turning the drill, the bow and the foot-treadle attachment are about the only mechanical improvements in this device in thousands of years. Since metal was introduced into Chinese technology centuries after jade had already been mastered, it had almost no real effect on methods of jade carving. Tools for sawing, drilling, and grinding became somewhat more efficient and less wasteful of jade. The earliest abrasive was probably quartz sand, which is almost always readily available. It is still widely used for many abrasive purposes. A switch from sand to crushed garnet, with its combination of superior hardness and sharp-angled grains, occurred centuries before the beginning of the Christian era. The chief gain was the time saved, but control of the shape and finish for each carved piece was reduced because of the greater cutting speed. Metal tools were introduced by the end of the Chou Dynasty, about 500 B.C. At this point the craft had matured, so that almost anything could be executed in jade.
After another fifteen or sixteen centuries, the next change in abrasive—from garnet to corundum—came about. As before, time-saving was the major gain. The final revolution in abrasives came at the very end of the 1800’s, when man-made carborundum, with its very superior cutting qualities, was introduced into China. Diamond powder would be even better and is often used for white gold wedding bands, but because of its cost it has had no impact on the native carving industry.