To certain of the Chinese “tomb-jades”—that is, jade amulets deposited with the dead—has been given the name _han-yü_, or “mouth-jade,” because these amulets, supposed to afford protection to the dead, were placed in their mouths. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York contains a fine collection of 279 specimens of jade from Chinese tombs, found within the past five or six years, and presented to the museum by Mr. Samuel F. Peters. In color these jades are not especially attractive, for the material has acquired a brownish stain, due to the products of decomposition of the body, and also to the absorption of some of the chemical constituents of the other objects in the tomb, during the long period of time, in many cases a thousand years or more, since the bodies were consigned to their final resting place. So multifarious are the uses to which jade is put by the Chinese, and so great is their admiration of its qualities, that they regard it as the musical gem _par excellence_. A series of oblong pieces of jade, of the same length and width, usually about 1.8 feet long and 1.35 feet wide, and numbering from 12 to 24, constitute a chime, the difference in the notes emitted by the material when sharply struck depending upon the varying thickness of the separate pieces. What is designated the “stone chime” used in court and religious ceremonials, is composed of 16 undecorated stones, while a series known as the singers’ chime consists of from 12 to 24 pieces carved into fantastic shapes. This use of jade for the production of musical sounds dates far back in the Chinese annals. We are told that when Confucius was much troubled at the ill-success of his efforts to reform the Chinese morals of his day, he sought consolation in playing on the “musical stone.” A peasant who noted this in passing by, exclaimed, as he heard the sounds: “Full indeed is the heart of him who beats the musical stone like that!”[107] A jade ornament greatly favored by the Maoris of New Zealand bore the name _hei-tiki_ (“a carved image for the neck”). The ornaments of this class are very rude and grotesque representations of the human face or form, and were generally regarded as schematically figuring some departed ancestor. The head sometimes slanted right or left, so that the eyes, which were very large and occasionally inlaid with mother-of-pearl, were on an angle of forty-five degrees. These ornaments were prized not only as memorials, but because, having been worn by successive ancestors, they were supposed to communicate something of the very being of those ancestors to such descendants as were privileged to wear the treasured heirloom in their turn. In many cases, when the family was dying out, the last male member would leave directions that his _hei-tiki_ should be buried with him, so that it might not fall into the hands of strangers.[108]