Jason Momoa's Arthur Curry wears a pounamu toki around his neck throughout the Aquaman films, and it's not just a costume choice. It's a deliberate piece of Māori cultural storytelling built into the character.
In the Aquaman films, Arthur Curry is reimagined as half-Māori, with Temuera Morrison playing his father. The pounamu he wears is carved in the shape of a toki, a traditional adze or chisel form, chosen deliberately to symbolise strength.
It's a small design detail, but it's part of a wider pattern in the films: Māori martial arts influence the fight choreography, and te reo Māori appears in the dialogue. For a global audience, it's often the first time they've seen pounamu on screen at all.
What Is a Toki, and Why Give It to Aquaman?
A toki is a traditional adze or chisel form, one of the oldest and most recognisable pounamu designs. In Māori tradition, tools like the toki were essential for survival and craftsmanship, so a toki pendant carries associations of strength, authority, and purpose. It's a fitting shape for a character built around physical power and a claim to leadership.
The production's choice to carve Arthur Curry's pendant as a toki, rather than a generic greenstone shape, signals a level of cultural research most blockbuster costume design doesn't bother with.
Arthur Curry's pounamu is one piece of a wider effort in the Aquaman films to ground the character in real Māori identity, alongside mau rākau-influenced fight choreography, te reo Māori dialogue, and casting Temuera Morrison as his father. For a lot of viewers outside New Zealand, this is genuinely the first time they've seen pounamu, or Māori culture more broadly, represented on screen at all.
That visibility is a good thing, but it also raises a question a lot of new fans ask next: is it okay for someone outside Māori culture to wear pounamu themselves, the way Arthur does on screen?
The necklace on screen is a costume piece designed to represent a pounamu toki, not necessarily carved from genuine New Zealand stone. Official replicas sold as merchandise are typically made from synthetic materials rather than authentic pounamu.
A toki is a traditional adze or chisel form, historically an essential tool, and carries associations of strength, authority, and purpose as a pendant. See our full guide to the toki design for more detail.
No. Jason Momoa is of Native Hawaiian descent, a distinct Polynesian culture from Māori. Arthur Curry was written and cast as half-Māori specifically for the Aquaman films, with Temuera Morrison, who is Māori, playing his father.
Yes. Genuine pounamu toki pendants are available from reputable New Zealand carvers and galleries. Browse our directory of verified sellers to find one.
