Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pa Maori

The Ihupuku Pa at Wai-totara

The Ihupuku Pa at Wai-totara

This interesting old fortified place, like Te Potiki a Rehua, was a stronghold of the tribe known as Nga-rauru, and is situated about half a mile west of the railway line in the valley of the Wai-totara, and about 100 yds. from the right bank of the river of that name. The site of the pa is a small isolated hill of somewhat triangular form, two sides of which are remarkably steep, even precipitous, while that representing the base of the triangle slopes easily down to a low rounded ridge trending northward to the hills. It is this end of the hill that has been defended by heavy earthworks, with accompanying stockades. The other two sides have evidently been protected by means of lines of stockades running along the summit of the bluffs and precipitous slopes. This pa was occupied in the 'forties' of last century, but was probably deserted soon after that time. There is now a small native hamlet on the low land just north of the old pa, while the road to the coast passes along the flat on the eastern side of the hill and swings westward round its southern extremity.

E. J. Wakefield, who visited Ihupuku pa in the early 'forties,' when travelling to Taranaki, gives the following account of it, and remarks that about 100 people were living there at the time. Approaching the place from the south across miles of sand hills he writes:—"The valley seemed about a mile and a half in width, and the opposite side was clothed with timber. Close to the further bank of the river which wound through the vale was a sort of acropolis, on which stood the village to which we were bound. Except on the very top, the houses were shaded by a luxuriant growth of karaku trees, which encircled the base and feathered up the sides of the fortified hill. The village was called Te Ihupuku, or 'the nose of the belly.' [Wakefield's rendering of Maori names is appalling, but he meant no harm.] Descending the sandhill, we traversed a fertile but somewhat swampy plain, and crossed the river, here about twelve yards wide."

The writer met with a very surly reception from these natives, owing to their having lately become Christians. He continues—"In the morning I strolled about the citadel, and gazed with pleasure on the fertile country around. The slopes of the valley are almost all covered with timber, but the level ground, both above and below, has a truly park-like appearance, being covered with a jungle of page 218fern, grass, reeds, flax and shrub, interspersed with groves and fringes of timber. About a hundred yards above Te Ihupuku, a strong and well made fishing weir stretched across the river, only two or three small passages being left for canoes. This, they told me, was for catching the piharau, a fine sort of lamprey, which is taken in abundance during freshets. The weir is called hutu by the natives. They place eel-pots, called hinaki, which are very artistically made, at the lower extremity of funnels formed by series of upright poles driven into the bed of the river, the interstices being filled up with fern.

"I was much surprised to find, on the very pinnacle of the acropolis, a large quantity of large oyster shells imbedded in the soil. The native whom I interrogated, persisted that they had been there from time immemorial." (These shells are those of the fossil Ostrea ingens.)

The groves of karaka trees and houses have long since disappeared, and the summit is now a native cemetery of the usual slovenly appearance, and the grazing ground of sheep. But the very summit of the hill is a small outcrop of very soft sandstone with numberless huge oyster shells embedded therein; this is on the western side overlooking the precipitous descent to the plain below.

The top of this hill, the part originally fortified and used as a stronghold, measures about 170 paces from north to south, and about 65 paces from east to west, but runs out to a sharp point at the south end, where a cliff afforded a good defence on the east and west sides, but a sunken entrance passage has been made into the pa, and a little scarping done. Another entrance was at the north end.

The western slope of this hill is extremely steep, in fact precipitous, but now scaleable in most parts; both sides must have been defended by lines of stockades along the brow of the bluffs when the place was occupied. The east side is even more precipitous and some parts unscaleable. No earthwork defence of the nature of a parapet was employed on these sides.

The summit of the hill, the fortified and occupied area, is not level, but slopes gently, and the southern end has been cut into terraces for house sites, the northern end scarce needing such preparation, though levelled for hut sites. Hut sites and store pits are numerous; the latter especially so, some areas of the hill are honeycombed with them, especially the eastern slope outside the defences. The sloping northern end of the hill has been fortified by means of heavy earthworks, three lines of which run from west to east, not horizontally, but following the slope of the land, and thus falling towards the east. These works might be termed terraces page 219 Fig. 58—View of the Urenui Valley from Te Kawa Pa. Pohokura Pa in middle distance. (See p. 220.) Fig. 58a—View of Pohokura Pa at Urenui. (See p. 220.) Photos by Augustus Hamilton page 220with heavy earth walls or ramparts on their outer edges, but they rather bear the aspect of huge ditches and walls. Denudation may have altered the appearance of them to a considerable extent, and it is not known as to whether or not dwelling huts were erected on these narrow enclosed terraces. The ramparts were surmounted by stockades according to local natives.

Commencing at the top, the edge of the summit of the hill pa was not provided with any earth wall, and from here the hillside has been scarped so as to form a wall about 20 ft. high, on the top of which a stockade would add another 10 ft. to the defence. At the base of this scarp is a terrace about 20 ft. wide in the clear, and nearly 30 ft. at the eastern end, but outside this clear space (now somewhat rounded by the accumulation of debris) comes the rampart, or earthen wall. The terrace below this is narrower, about 12 to 16 ft. in the clear; its inner scarp, plus the superincumbent rampart being not less than 18 ft., while its own outer rampart is now 6 ft. high at the western end. All these earthworks diminish in size in their eastward trend, and gradually disappear. The outermost terrace was about 13 ft. wide in the clear, the inner scarp, plus its wall, possibly 20 ft. high, and the outer rampart now 5 ft. in its highest part. This is the lowest line of defence.

The water supply of this fortified village was probably the Waitotara river, about 100 yds. east of the base of the hill, but water might have been obtained by sinking a few feet at the base of Ihupuku.

Old fish weirs are still seen in the river near the pa, but they have not been kept in repair, and probably are not now used.