Chapter II.

Fortified pas— Trade in mats and "heads"—Taranaki flax—Visits of whalers—Firearms—Incursions of Northern tribes.

The Maoris have ever been a warlike race, and had a love of fighting for fighting's sake. We have only to look at the vast number of fortified pas, or forts, in the Taranaki district, to understand the perpetual state of warfare the people lived in—indeed, in no part of New Zealand are there as many, or such excellent specimens of the old Maon fighting pas as in this district, each one of which has its own interesting history. This fertile land, with its numerous Maori population, has ever been an attraction to outside tribes, leading to many a warlike expedition to obtain flax, mats, and "heads," To obtain these mats, either by barter or by war, has always proved an irresistible attraction to the northern tribes. Indeed, the presence of the finer kind of flax—strange as it may sound—greatly facilitated the peaceful occupation of Taranaki by the early European settlers. page 6 In this wise; The early years of the nineteenth century were marked by the increasing numbers of visits from whaling ships to all parts of the New Zealand coasts, but particularly to the Bay of Islands and the north, Hence the Maoris of those parts were the earliest to become acquainted with the effect of firearms, and an ardent desire was engendered to possess such weapons in quantity, which the Maoris were acute enough to see would quickly give them the upper hand of all other tribes. To secure arms became the absorbing object of the Nga-Puhi, or northern tribes; and this they accomplished by the barter of fresh provisions, flax, and "heads"—for the whalers and other visitors in those early times were always eager to procure specimens of the preserved tatooed heads of Maoris for sale to curiosity hunters in Europe and America. It was to secure fine flax mats, and also heads, that the northern tribes commenced from about 1805 that series of warlike expeditions into the Taranaki district, that (aided by Waikato) ended in about 1835 in driving nearly the whole of the Maori population of the Taranaki coast—from White Cliffs to Patea—into exile; to Port Nicholson, to the South Island, and to the Chatham Islands. Thus, when the first European settlers arrived, there were practically no native inhabitants to oppose them, or to dispute the New Zealand Company's very loose purchase of the District.