Micronesia and Indonesia

According to Christian the natives of Ponape, Caroline Group, were no mean proficients in fortification and the art of war. A fortified post attacked by the Spanish in 1890 had a stockade 680 yds. long, 11 ft. high, and 1 ft. in thickness.

Christian also mentions old stone walled forts in the Caroline Group, and describes one such ancient native fortress on a hill top that seems to have been terraced.

Nicholas remarks on the similarity of Maori and Battak customs, etc., and says, in writing of these Batta or Battak folk of Sumatra:— "In the fortified villages of these people, we see almost an exact description of the New Zealand pa. Constructed like the latter upon elevated ground, they are fortified with large ramparts of earth planted with brushwood; and outside these ramparts, or mounds, is a ditch, on each side of which rises a high palisade of timber." The subject of the origin of the pa maori and as to whether or not the knowledge of its construction was introduced from other lands is one that needs close investigation.

During the Vedic age in India villages were protected by stockades and earthworks.

Some of the tribes of Borneo protected their communal houses by means of stockades. These defences consisted of a double row of palisades. Ling Roth tells us that, "Many of the poles of which it consists are ironwood, sometimes 30 ft. high, with rough carvings, representing disfigured [grotesque] human faces with long tongues, also monstrous animals, usually in the form of crocodiles, in order to frighten as it were the attacking foe." He also mentions a stage or elevated platform inside the stockades, from which an attacking force was harassed.

For purposes of comparison the following description of an American pa is given. Indeed it would be possible to collect accounts of primitive forts resembling the pa maori from many countries, including England and Ireland.

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The fortified villages of the Hurons of Canada must have resembled to some extent a Maori pa. The following account of the former is taken from the Annual Archaeological Report of Ontario for 1911: —"A situation was chosen favourable to defence, the bank of a lake, the crown of a difficult hill, or a high point of land in the fork of confluent rivers. A ditch, several feet deep, was dug around the village, and the earth thrown up on the inside. Trees were then felled by an alternative process of burning and hacking the burnt part with stone hatches, and by similar means were cut into lengths to form palisades. These were planted on the embankment, in one, two or three concentric rows—those of each row inclining towards those of the other rows until they intersected. The whole was lined within, to the height of a man, with heavy sheets of bark; and at the top, where the palisades crossed, was a gallery of timber for the defenders, together with wooden gutters by which streams of water could be poured down on fires kindled by the enemy. Magazines of stones, and rude ladders for mounting the rampart completed the provision for defence.

"The forts of the Iroquois were stronger and more elaborate than those of the Hurons; and to this day large districts in New York are marked with frequent remains of their ditches and embankments."

In no other part of the Pacific east of the Asiatic Archipelago does the fortified village seem to have obtained to the extent that it did in the North Island of New Zealand. Throughout Polynesia we hear of strongholds, retreats and certain fortified places having been used during times of unusual disturbance, or as refuges, but the natives do not appear to have lived in such places in the more or less permanent manner that the Maori did, save possibly in the little island of Rapa. Of the different forms of forts used in Polynesian groups, those of Tonga most closely resembled the pa maori, and the Tongans seem to have borrowed the art of fort construction from the Fijians even as they came to use the Fijian style of canoe.

In Fiji we find a Melanesian folk who appear to have constructed hill forts defended by ramparts, fosses, stockades and fighting stages, as on Viti-levu, while they also utilised another form with wet moats on low lying land. Further details regarding these fortified villages, and as to their being permanently occupied, or otherwise, are much wanted. In various groups and isles from the Philippines eastward to the island limits at the Hawaiian, Marquesas and Society Groups, we come across, at intervals, some form of defensive works in stone, earth or timber, but in no place was the art carried to such an extreme as in New Zealand, in no other group do such works seem to have been so elaborate a nature, or so extensively used and occu-page 433pied. In fact they were not a common usage in those groups, so far as we have learned, not even in Tonga. The Fijians, on the other hand, appear to have lived in such places, which are said to have been numerous on Viti-levu, and this was the custom in New Zealand. But such fortified villages do not appear to have been common on other isles of the Fijian Group.

Thus, in seeking the prototype of the Maori system of fortification we find practically nothing in all the vast area of Polynesia, comprising the central and eastern Pacific, that arrests the attention as closely resembling the pa maori except at the Tongan Group, and there it seems to have been introduced. The defences of the hill forts in the Melanesian area most certainly seem to have resembled those of New Zealand forts.

In the North Island of New Zealand the custom of living in fortified villages was practically universal. In times of peace the people might live outside their fort, as when working at their crops, or engaged in collecting food supplies, but the pa was there as a refuge in case of danger.

Why this system of strong defences for villages should have been followed so much in New Zealand, may, perhaps, be accounted for by the fact that fighting was of commoner occurrence here than in other groups, or for the reason that many tribes meant many enemies. At the same time, this living in fortified villages may have been inherited from the original inhabitants of New Zealand, a people of whom we know practically nothing.

This latter is a subject of much interest. The first inhabitants of New Zealand, of whom some description has been preserved in tradition, seem to have been much unlike the Maori in appearance, and in many of their habits, though speaking a tongue akin to Maori. It may, or may not, have contained sounds not known in the Maori speech; the few words of the language that have been preserved, as also place names, would naturally be altered by the Maori from Eastern Polynesia to suit his own phonetic methods. Whoever the original people, known to the later immigrants and in tradition as Maruiwi and Mouriuri may have been, they seem to have much resembled Melanesians in appearance, and it is quite possible that they were a mixed people from the Western Pacific. This subject we will not pursue, but merely try to answer the question that naturally presents itself to the mind—Did the old time aboriginal folk live in, or utilise fortified places? In answering this query we have but oral tradition to rely upon. Such tradition states that the original people of this island, a folk possessing somewhat unattractive features and page 434dark skin colour, did construct fortified places. These traditions have been condensed by Mr. W. H. Skinner into the following passage:—

"The fortified pa seems to have been a very ancient institution in New Zealand, and especially on the Taranaki coast. We learn from reliable tradition that the original inhabitants of the country, who were found in occupation on the arrival of Toi from Eastern Polynesia about the middle of the twelfth century, were in the habit of building fortified pa; indeed, they seem to have introduced the fashion and put it in practice soon after their arrival on this coast. This ancient people, who came, no doubt, from the Western Pacific, are said to have first made the land at or near Nga Motu (The Sugar Loaf islets), and made their first settlement in the neighbourhood of the Urenui river. They are accredited with the building of the following old pa, which are still in good preservation, having no doubt been kept in repair until their abandonment in the early years of the nineteenth century: Maru-wehi, Poho-kura, Okoki, and others, all on the banks of the Urenui river."

The immigrants from Eastern Polynesia who arrived in New Zealand nearly thirty generations ago, inter-married with these aborigines, and certainly continued the custom of fort building. Their principal chief Toi, surnamed the Wood Eater, is said to have lived in the old earthwork fort at Whakatane known as Ka-pu-te-rangi. The Tawhiti-nui pa at Opotiki, where skeletons were found at the bases of the stockade posts, and Owhara pa at Maketu, the earthworks of which enclose nearly seven acres of land, are also said in tradition to have been constructed by this mixed race.

We know that from about thirty down to about eighteen generations ago there was a considerable amount of intercourse between New Zealand and the Pacific Isles. Even if the original inhabitants were not fort builders, that intercourse opens a channel for the introduction of the usage. It probably did not originate here.

Whatever the origin of the pa maori may have been, it seems fairly clear that such fortified villages were constructed by the natives of New Zealand from very early times, and that the Maori was a master of the art of fortification by means of rampart and fosse, scarp and stockade. Also that he adapted his methods to meet changed conditions resulting from the acquisition of firearms with celerity and success; the result being positions that were more easily defended than were our redoubts, superior in plan and execution.

The origin of the pa maori is a fair field for enquiry, while the study of the many remains of old hill forts might well appeal to those interested in a highly remarkable race.