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The Pa Maori

[contents and introduction]

page 365

Contents

The Maori an adept at adaptation. Use of cannon leads to disuse of heavy stockades. Notes from Tuta Nihoniho. Darwin's remarks. The pa of Hongi. French account of a fort at Kawakawa. Waitahanui at Taupo. Descriptions of modern fortified villages. Wellington district. Ohangai, near Hawera. Commanding hills cause evacuation of old forts. Casemates, ravelins, traverses and rifle pits introduced. Orangi-tuapeka. The Matai-taua pa at Paua-tahanui. Puke-kakariki. Orongo-maha-nga. Stockades blinded with flax. Onawe at Akaroa. Kaiapoi. Te Teko. Mauinaina. Stages built to command pa. Hikurangi on the Whanganui. Keke-paraoa at Poverty Bay. Many old forts well preserved. Pa-toka. Te Weraroa at Wai-totara. Tihoi at Whenua-kura. Pa at Nelson. Okaihau at Lake Omapere. Ohaeawai. Rua-pekapeka. Report on Maori forts. Use of casemates. The Gate pa. Rangiriri. British troops repulsed. Otapawa. Moturoa. Tauranga-ika. Entrance to pa, how blocked. Okotuku. Pipitea village at Wellington. Nga Tapa at Poverty Bay. Rifle pits at Whakatane. Fighting stages at the Chatham Isles.

After the acquisition of firearms by the Maori people, those astute warriors soon found that some change must be made in their system of fortification and methods of fighting. The statement sometimes made, however, that firearms 'struck a fatal blow at the whole system of Maori tactics' is entirely wrong; they simply caused the Maori to make some changes in his fortified places and mode of conducting a fight.

In his Old New Zealand, Maning remark:—"Now when the natives became generally armed with the musket, they at once abandoned the hills, and, to save themselves the great labour and inconvenience occasioned by the necessity of continually carrying provisions, fuel, and water to these precipitous hill castles; which would be also, as a matter of necessity, at some inconvenient distance from at least some part of the extensive cultivations—descended to the low lands, and there, in the centre of the cultivations, erected a new kind of fortification adapted to the capabilities of the new weapon."

page 366

Colonel Gudgeon has written as follows:—"The Maori was a past master in the art of fortification…. The aptitude of the Maori for all sorts of warfare … has never been made so manifest as by the modifications introduced into their system of fortification in order to neutralise the crushing effect of our heavy guns. … In place of using the massive hardwood posts which formed the ordinary palisades of Heke's war of 1845, only light tough rods were used in the later wars, each one tied independently to the supporting beam, so that if cut in two by a shot it should not involve the fall of other parts of the work. These light timbers were specially designed to minimise the chief danger of artillery fire, viz., splinters, the effects of which the Maoris had not failed to notice. This was but one of many innovations introduced by the Maoris in order to meet the improved conditions of modern warfare, and since that period they have, as a rule, regarded the big guns with more or less contempt. … The Maori discovered that the big gun does not kill so many men as it frightens, and for this reason they feared only our rifles."

Again, the Rev. J. Buller tells us:—"Their forts, or pa, were built on lofty hills, always securing a retreat by wood or water. They surrounded them with strong stockades and deep trenches. … Stockades were also erected in the valleys and plains: they consisted of irregular lines of poles from twenty to thirty feet high, and six to twelve inches in diameter. A lighter fence, from six to eight feet high, was outside this. Between the two there was a ditch. At every corner there was a quadrangle from which to rake the besiegers. … Since firearms have been known to them, they defend their pa from a number of rifle pits. The huts inside are covered over with earth and clay, making them musket proof. The consummate skill shown by them in the construction of their rude forts astonished our military engineers."

The quadrangles or bastions above mentioned were not a feature of the pa of pre-European days.

A military officer writes as follows anent the aptitude of the Maori for altering the defensive works of his fortified places to suit modern warfare:—"As time went on they improved their methods immensely in order to cope with our guns and rifles, until at last many a pa constructed on a plain, in fairly open country, Orakau for instance, was so ingeniously designed as to be what the Germans call sturmfrei, so that it could only be captured by heavy bombardment, by mining, or blockade. At Orakau there were three determined assaults gallantly led, these were repulsed in succession, and other methods of attack had to be resorted to."