Terraced Hill Forts

Some of the most interesting of the old native forts are of this type, likewise many of the largest. They were also probably the most picturesque when occupied; this remark applying especiallv to the page 286extensive pa of the north, where many of the volcanic cones that are so remarkable a feature of that region have been terraced to their summits. Residential terraces are also seen inside the craters. Some of these terraced hills have demanded an enormous amount of labour in excavation, when the lack of tools is considered. These terraces are termed parehua in the East Coast district, of which word paehua is a variant form, and whakahua is also applied to a terrace. The Tuhoe tribe appears to refer to them as tuku. We see these terraces of many widths, from 8 ft. up to 40 ft. and occasionally over. Some of the escarpments are of considerabe height, 20 ft. is not uncommon, and some far exceed that figure. They were made with different batters, according to the material being worked; the steeper the scarp the easier to defend. As a rule the terraces were not very long, it being a recognised rule of native military engineers to break the level at intervals. Thus you may traverse a fine terrace 20 ft. wide for 40 yds. and then find it discontinued, with a sudden drop or rise of 4 ft. to 10 ft. to the next terrace. As this peculiarity occurs in soil free from rock and easily worked, it is clear that such a formation was adhered to simply to facilitate defence, which it would undoubtedly do, for these level breaks, as well as the scarp brows, would be stockaded. The dwelling huts seem to have been erected on the inner sides of terraces, thus leaving space outside them page 287 page 288for passage and defence. Each terrace was a fortified and defensible position in itself, each could be separately defended, and would have to be separately taken. In defending such a place the non-combatants were retired to a terrace above the one being attacked. Rude forms of ladder were sometimes used as a means of reaching an upper terrace.

The numerous remains of old pa on the hills near Auckland are of much interest, but no one seems to have put any detailed description of them on record. Of those situated on Mounts Wellington and Halswell, Colonel Mundy remarks, in Our Antipodes—"The appearance of both affords evidence of a numerous and warlike population, now passed away. Each is cut into several ranges of terraces, with breastworks and excavations originally roofed in, and forming the dwellings and stores of the garrisons of these fortified hills, once raging with their own subterranean fires. For half a mile all round the base of these mounts are to be traced, among the high fern, hundreds of scoria walls, evidently the enclosures of former potato gardens, and piles of white shells of the pipi, or cockle, brought from the seashore for food. Mount Halswell … possesses a singularly strong position. … The remains of ancient fortifications to the very top are quite manifest, and the base is defended by a wide and deep swampy ditch, crossed by a causeway, both of which may have been produced by volcanic accident, although they bear all the appearance of a ruined artificial fosse. There are natives, and even white men, who recollect the remnants of wooden palisades on Mount Halswell."

At a place on the Tamaki this writer speaks of seeing "Indications of very extensive and evidently wholly artificial works, with a deep ditch, high curtains and gateways, and, in advance of the main work, a regular demi-lune on the land side. On one flank of the height thus fortified is a large circular basin of deep water, in which any number of the defenders' canoes may have ridden perfectly safe from an enemy."

Those of the Auckland series examined by the writer show exceedingly few signs of breastworks, and it is doubtful if any of the pits were used as dwelling places.

In speaking of the many old pa that formerly existed in the vicinity of Auckland city, and of which he gives the names of twenty-five, the author of The Peopling of the North remarks—"When we contemplate the extensive ramparts of these old pa, the excavations for houses, and food storing pits, we are lost in amazement at the work performed in the construction of such fortifications, made as they were by the koko maire, or wooden spade. On each terrace page 289there was a line of palisading, often made of large tree trunks, the tops carved with conventionalised human heads, with ornamental gateways, the tihi or citadel crowning all, where the principal chief lived. Imagine the toil implied in provisioning Mt. Eden for a siege!—the stores of food, firewood and water that would have to be conveyed there, all of which work fell either to the women of the tribe, or the slaves. … Water was stored in large wooden kurnete (troughs), or otherwise in calabashes, and on the water supply depended the safety of the besieged. Owing to the difficulty about water, I do not think that any pa like Mt. Eden could ever have withstood a long siege. It is probable that, in its day, Mt. Eden pa would hold a population of at least 3000 people."

It must again be explained here that earthen walls or ramparts are very rare in these old pa of the Auckland district. They are rare and of small extent. The defences consisted of escarpments and stockades.

I have employed the term terraced hill forts to describe these places about to be reviewed. Of course nearly all hill forts were terraced, this was necessary in order to obtain hut sites. The marked difference in the extensive terraced hills of North Auckland is that hillsides were far more extensively terraced, and that fosses and ramparts are almost non-existent, the defences consisting of scarped faces surmounted by stockades. See Figs. 72A, 73, 74, pp. 286, 287 and 294.

Of these hill forts in the vicinity of Auckland Hochstetter wrote:— "They are terraced, that is to say terraces are cut round the declivities 10 ft. to 12 ft. high. … Upon these terraces double rows of stockades were planted in olden times, and deep holes dug, covered with branches, reeds, and ferns, like wolf traps, for the purpose of insnaring the assailing foes. Other pits, less deep, connected by subterranean passages from above and below, and having ingeniously concealed outlets, served the defenders of the fort as secret paths and hiding places, or as ambuscades, from which they sallied forth upon the assailants; and in a third sort of holes in the ground they had their provisions stored away. The observer is justly struck with astonishment on seeing how ingeniously and practically the Maoris had planned their forts, and what colossal works they were capable of executing with extremely rude and defective instruments of wood and stone. … Behind all those palisades and ditches encircling the slope of the mountain, high on the top, lived the chief, with his family and the nobles of his tribe."

The double rows of stockade on terrace brows are not proven, and pitfalls were not a Maori defence; nor were secret artificial page 290subterranean paths a common feature, but extremely rare. Subterranean tunnels, old lava flow channels, are, however, numerous in the district, some of which were used as places of concealment for bones of the dead. It was not customary to erect a double stockade on a scarp brow.

Of these terraced hill forts we see specimens in other parts but they are much more numerous in the north than elsewhere. The Ohae pa at Ruatoki, and Rakei-hopukia at Te Teko are old terraced hill forts on a small scale, not of the extensive northern type.

In describing the district between Mokau and Titoki (two miles south of Puke-aruhe) Mr. Percy Smith writes:—"This territory has many fine pa in it. … There is one named Pukekari-rua, just about a mile south of Mokau, standing as a peak on the range which rises some 800 feet from the coastal flats, that is remarkable for the number of terraces still very plainly to be seen from the high road. There are eight of these terraces, each one of which, in former times, would be palisaded."

Angas writes:—"The country around Auckland was formerly occupied by large and powerful tribes, of which the only remaining vestiges are to be found in the terraced walls of scoriae built on the slopes of Mount Eden, and others of the extinct craters, and the whitened heaps of pipi shells that lie scattered in immense quantities about these slopes, that once formed the sites of their fortified pa. Clearings in the scoriae are also discernible at the foot of the craters, where the blocks of lava are piled up in heaps: these were evidently removed by the natives to form gardens for the cultivation of their kumara and other vegetable productions."

"Terraced walls built" is scarcely a happy expression, they are simply escarpments, occasionally supplemented with rubble stone-work.

Earle, writing in the 'twenties' of last century, remarks of one of these carved hills:—"The top of this hill was level and square, and was capable of containing several hundred warriors. It was cut into slopes all round, and fortified by stockades in every direction, which rendered it impregnable."

The terraced hill forts described below are remarkable for the almost entire absence of fosse and rampart as defences, their defences consisting of scarped faces and stockades. Now there are two aspects of these terraced hill positions. One type is marked by bold terracings of a hill, as seen in the Auckland district, while the other shows no extensive or continuous terraces, but merely many small levelled areas, linchets that would accommodate one or two huts. In some instances no sign of earthwork defences is seen, and stockades must page 291have been the only defensive works. The Heipipi and Otatara pa of the Napier district are illustrations of this second type. The same aspect was noted with regard to an old time hill village of the Wahineiti tribe at Wai-o-matatini.