Koru (unfolding fern frond)

Design Story

"Ka mate he tete, ka tupu he tete."

"As one frond dies, another frond grows."

Koru is the name Maori people give to the fern frond that, unfolding towards the light, symbolizes the beginning of a new life. It was often used as a design for pendants carved into bones which, if worn on the skin, changed their colour over time. Maoris saw this as the spirit of the bearer penetrating into the pendant, and it was good, if someone received such one, to carry it on the skin for a while, in order to get his own spirit in it too

Two Koru designs are attached below.