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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 4, Issue 2 (June 1, 1929.)

The Trenches at Puraku

The Trenches at Puraku.

Now a story of these slopes of the Okoheriki that go down towards Ngongotaha from the rail line where it emerges from the straggly borders of the bush.

page 28

A little over a mile before the train glides down into Tarukenga station, a white-painted gate is passed on the right, or east side. Supposing one makes a stop-over at Tarukenga for a few hours between trains, this gate gives the stroller entry to the Crown land—waste land still when I saw it last—where the fern and tupekahi bushes grow thickly on this olden battlefield. A walk of two hundred yards down the fern slopes in the direction of some pine trees brings one to an historical spot that should be preserved as a national monument. It is the best existing example of military engineering in the last Maori Wars. I have explored scores of fortifications in New Zealand, but none of them possesses the special features that make this Puraku Pa so good a specimen of native defensive works adopted to modern needs. There are no conspicuous earth-works or terraces as in the ancient pas; nearly all the defences consisted of trenches, a most skilful example of Maori ingenuity in “digging in.”

A great war-party of Hauhaus invaded the Rotorua country in 1867. The warriors came from the Waikato, through the forest that our railway penetrates. Government forces, militia and Arawa allies drove them out, killing a score or more.

When the Government troops entered the pa, they found it a marvel of ingenuity, and even to-day its deep trenches, with traverses and flanking bastions, remain almost intact. The double palisading was destroyed, but the Arawa fortunately did not take the trouble to fill in the trenches. There were two palisades, the pekerangi on the outside of the trench and the kiri-tangata (“the warrior's skin”) immediately inside. These stockades had been constructed of totara timber hauled from the near-by forest by the sledge track which wound up past the pa. The trench was about three feet wide with a depth of five feet. The interior of the work measured 80 paces in length by 45 paces at the widest part; most of this space was occupied by whares, low huts thatched with kaponga fern-tree fronds and sides and eaves protected by being earthed up for several feet. The earth floors of these huts were dug in a foot or two below the level of the ground. The trench, with its numerous traverses and covered ways, was essentially the same as our soldiers' trenches in France and Flanders in the Great War, but in one detail there is a difference. The pakeha engineer throws out the earth from the trench in front of his ditch to form a low parapet. The Maori cast the earth on the inner side, his rear, lest the bullets of the enemy, striking the loose soft soil should throw dirt in his eyes, confuse his aim, and perhaps temporarily blind him. The dug-out soil also formed a little parepare or parapet on the outer side of the main line of palisading, close against the back of which the bullet-proof whares were built. On the marae, the open space or parade ground, stood the niu, around which the Hauhaus marched chanting their Paimarire service. There was a low roughly built railing, a Hauhau altar rail around the foot of the mast; within this tapu space stood the tohunga, the priest of the war-party, who slowly revolved around the pole leading the chanting, as his followers marched in procession.

(Photo. C. R. Barrett.) The famous Fairy Spring, Rotorua, New Zealand.

(Photo. C. R. Barrett.)
The famous Fairy Spring, Rotorua, New Zealand.

The three gateways, the principal one on the western side, may still plainly be traced. Except at these gateways and at places where the covered ways ran, the deep narrow ditch of the Hauhau trench is continuous about the roughly rectangular pa. Its sides in places are as clearly cut as if they were delved out page 29 but yesterday; this is where the scaling of moss which accumulated on the fern-shaded walls had fallen off. The trench is, in most places, four feet deep; somewhat shallower than its original dimensions, but the wonder is that sixty years have left the work in so perfect a state of preservation. The Maori engineer was particularly careful to guard against enfilading fire, hence the continuous line of the trench is broken by a man-high traverse every few yards, and there are frequent slight salients as flanking angles; while on the northern side, where
“All rosy-hued, it seemed, with sunset's glow …”—Alfred Domett. (Photo, C. R. Barrett.) A section of the beautiful Pink Terrace at Orakei Korako, North Island, New Zealand.

All rosy-hued, it seemed, with sunset's glow …”—Alfred Domett.
(Photo, C. R. Barrett.)
A section of the beautiful Pink Terrace at Orakei Korako, North Island, New Zealand.

the ground falls steeply to the old track through the fern, the front attacked by the white section of the force, there is a high flanking bastion projecting about twenty-five feet from the main work.