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Home and Fort

© Philippa Jane Ballantine

In a previous article I gave a broad picture of the life of Maori before the arrival of the Europeans, in this article I will go more in depth on the heart of that world, the pas (fortified villages) which were both home and protection.

I have already discussed how the Maori revolutionary use of earthworks and fortification, proved so successful against the British army, especially in the Battle of Gate Pa, but it had its beginnings long before Captain Cook sailed the Pacific, or the two cultures even knew of the others existence.

Having moved their way through the islands and finally reaching New Zealand, the early Maori would have mainly lived on the seashore, but with the eventual depletion of ready resources, such as the moa, there had to be a change in habits. The growing and harvesting of vegetables, such as the Maori sweet potato, known as the kumara, became increasingly important. Maori did make use of casual shelter, where they would simply use caves, or pile up forest debris for a little protection when they needed it, but this would be only short term, or for those living by themselves. To provide real stability they needed more.

So with the rise of cultivation more permanent shelters became necessary, close to where the plants were being grown. Peoples began to claim fertile areas for this purpose, and to defend them against those that might want them for their own. The Maori now began to rely on these settlements, where the root vegetables, and fern root could be cultivated in the warm seasons, and where they could build storage pits to keep the tender roots during the cooler weather.

And once you have a settlement there will always be those who look on it with envious eyes- and you need to protect it. So the Maori built fortifications called pa to defend all that they valued. Like civilizations the world over, they realized that the best place for defenses is on a high place. All over Polynesia there are hill forts, but in New Zealand they reached new pinnacles of construction.

Soon pa of earth and timber were springing up over the country. They had palisades, trenches, terraces, and ditches, all designed to slow down an enemy, and allow easy defense. Captain Cook was the first white man to see and write about these structures.

…strong posts or sticks drove into the ground and those interwoven with long sticks in horizontal direction and then filled with small brush wood with one place two feet square where was a wooden fore, so that only one man could get in at a time and hat on his hands and knees and of course easily destroy’d if at war.

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