Notes on Fighting Stages Contributed by the Late Tuta Nihoniho of the Ngati-Porou Tribe of the East Coast

There was usually a puhara, or fighting stage erected so that men stationed thereon might defend the entrance to a pa. It extended from an inner stockade to the main one, and sometimes projected out over the latter; it was built on stout posts higher than the secondary posts of the main stockade, the floor of the stage being on a level with the top of such secondary posts. Access to these stages was by means of notched timbers, stout saplings.

There were often several of such stages in a pa. Some were of considerable size, as many as twenty men being able to operate from a large one. In some cases a stage was built on both sides of the entrance passage, sometimes on one side only, and at others immediately over it. If the attacking force managed to force the stockade barriers and enter the ditch, the garrison manned the earth wall, their principal efforts being directed to the defence of the passage through or under it.

The posts supporting the stage were stalwart tree trunks, forked at the tops for the reception of the horizontal beams which supported the flooring. These posts were often inclined inwards a little, in order to prevent any spreading.

Occasionally an attacking force would erect elevated platforms near thepa, from which to cast stones and sling spears.

In a terraced hill fort, such stages were sometimes erected so as to command places whereat an enemy might possibly gain access to the place, the weak parts of the defences.

Flanking angles, as such, were not added to the pre-European pa, though, in the case of hill forts, there were often projections of the defences of various forms, owing to the configuration of the ground. In some cases, however, a puhara or stage was erected outside but against the stockade in order that men stationed on it might defend some weak place in the defences. There was no earthwork or stockade round these projecting stages, nothing but the platform, with its bulwark, elevated on posts, access to which could only be gained from the interior of the fortified area.

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A watchman might be stationed on one of these stages, or on the top of the earthwork defence. He might occasionally stroll round the defences, along the top of the parapet or along the ditch. In a large pa, when an attack was feared, there might be as many as four watchmen, stationed at different places. Sometimes a man kept watch throughout the whole night, or he might be relieved by another during the night. Persons might volunteer for such a task, or a chief might tell off a man as watchman for the night. Noted warriors were usually the most willing to act as watchmen, the strenuous fighters being the best of sentries. The alert fighting man, sayeth our informant, never slept soundly, he was ever wakeful.

It seems fairly clear that, on the whole, the Maori people, when dwelling in their fortified places, were not very systematic and careful in their look-out duties. In many cases they were inconsistent, from our point of view. An occupied pa might neglect watch duties at night for some time, and then, because some person had a portentous dream, it would be resolved to appoint a watchman, lest disaster wait upon neglect of the warning. Among an undisciplined people such a desultory manner of safeguarding a community would naturally obtain, more especially among those possessed of the peculiar characteristics of the Maori people. The Maori night watchman, like those of India, had no faith in such sentiments as 'silence is golden.'