Earthworks of The Pa Maori

The earthwork defences of native forts may be brought under three headings, viz.:—

1.	Ramparts or parapets.
2.	Fosses or trenches.
3.	Escarpments or scarped faces.

Casemates and bastions were not a feature of the old forts of pre-European days, but were introduced after the acquisition of firearms. Ramparts and fosses are almost inseparable in the remains of old time pa, but we also see the fosse without any accompanying rampart or parapet, as noted in ridge forts. The common method was to excavate a fosse and to utilise the spoil in building up a massive wall on the inner brow of the fosse, so that the outer scarp of the wall or rampart coalesced with the inner slope of the fosse, thus producing an even, unbroken face difficult for escaladers. In Cook's account, given above, we have a trench 14ft. deep, but a scarp face of 22ft., showing that the superimposed rampart, or bank as he terms it, was about eight feet in height. A rampart without an accompanying fosse did not appeal to the Maori; he liked to have a deep trench outside it to increase the strength of the defence. page 48 page 49 Occasionally we see an earthern wall of inferior size on the brow of a scarped face, acting as a parapet, as noted in certain terraced forts. See Fig. 12 below. Still rarer are the cases in which we see a trench at the base of the inner scarp of a terrace formation. Such trenches may have been made after firearms were acquired. A steep hill slope might be defended by means of a scarped face 8ft. to 20ft. in height, with a stockade along the brow thereof, or there might be in addition a fosse at the base of the scarp with a rampart outside it, on which another stockade would be erected. Again, one or more terraces might be excavated below the scarp, each of which would have a stockade along its outer edge. All these methods, as also other defensive works, will come within the scope of this paper, when we come to deal with the exploration of the old fortified places of the Maori.

It is doubtful if a banquette was ever employed by the Maori in pre-European days, simply because the Maori did not conceal himself behind his earthworks, he stationed himself on the top of them in order to repel an attack. No remains of such banquettes are seen page 50 at any old fort we have examined, nor do any of the early travellers mention such a feature. It was the gun that drove the Maori from the summit of his ramparts and forced him to seek shelter behind them.

The outermost defence was usually a fosse and stockade in forts constructed on level land, and also in many cases in the hill forts. Some of the fosses yet seen are of considerable size, being up to 20 ft. in depth and 12 ft. wide across the bottom, and then brow erosion and deposits of debris in the fosse have to be taken into consideration. See Figs. 14-14A, pp. 48-49. In the case of ramparts it may be said that none preserve their original aspect; having been so long abandoned to the elements, and the trampling of stock, their summits have become rounded and the batters degraded. The illustrations given will enable the reader to understand the aspect of ramparts, fosses and stockades.

In some old forts three, four, and even as many as five ramparts are seen, but many pa maioro or rampart forts have but two, some only one. In some cases the various ramparts and fosses were close together; in others they are some distance apart, with a residential area between them. A line of defence such as the single rampart and fosse may be a very strong one against an enemy not possessing firearms, and these defences would certainly be supplemented by a stockade. The Puketapu pa, near Te Teko is a good specimen of a small isolated hill fortified by several lines of fosses and ramparts on its slopes.

In some districts it is noted that fortified positions in or near a forest are by no means so strongly defended as those in open country, the occupants of the former having the adjacent forest to depend upon as a refuge. In the Urewera district, a congeries of rugged forest clad ranges occupied by the Tuhoe tribe, but very few remains of fortified places are seen; these fierce bushmen relied principally on their rough inhospitable forest clad hills and gulches, and the page 51 cover they afforded. They were past masters in the arts of ambuscade and bush warfare. In open country, such as the Taranaki coast, the Bay of Plenty, and some other districts, old forts are very numerous. These folk had no forests at hand to retire to. It might so happen that a clan possessed no really good site for a strong fort on its own lands, whereupon the chief of a neighbouring clan might offer them such a site. Such an offer was in many cases declined, simply because no Maori chief likes to live under the mana (influence, authority, etc.) of another. It might be said in after years that he and his folk had sought protection under another chieftain, which would be truly a grievous slight. No person more careful of his dignity than your Maori chief.

An old native of the East Coast informed the writer that occasionally a fort on flat land was so constructed as to have several ramparts of two different heights, alternate high and low walls, the latter being known as maioro maru, and the former as maioro pekerangi. Also that in such a fort there was no stockade outside the outermost rampart, and that a stockade not raised on a rampart was erected inside the second wall.

The term maioro is applied not only to an earthen rampart or wall, but, curiously enough, also to a fosse or trench, reminding us of our word moat, with its double meaning.

Some elderly natives assert that, in former times, the ramparts of forts were from 6 ft. to 12 ft. in height, but when situated on the edge of a fosse the scarp face would, of course, be increased by the depth of the fosse, as noted by Cook. Such ramparts are still seen 9 ft. in height in cases where the elements and the trampling of stock have been working destruction for many years. The second and third decades of the 19th century saw the abandonment, to a marked extent, of the old type of native fort, in order to meet changed conditions of warfare.

The top of a rampart of the pre-European forts was, we are told, about six or seven feet in width, thus affording room for the defenders to stand on it and use their spears. See Figs. 15 and 16, pp. 50-53. This width would allow of a stockade being erected about two feet from the outer edge of the wall, and still leave room for men to stand on the inner side and manipulate spears. Or those ramparts surmounted by a stockade might have been a foot wider. In all remaining walls the upper parts are, of course, much rounded by abrasion and erosion. Other such ramparts were not surmounted by stockades.

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The generic term for a trench or ditch is awakari, but Williams' gives two specific terms:—Awamate, a fosse outside a line of defence, and whakaawarua, a fosse inside such a line. In excavating these trenches the most primitive forms of wooden implements were used:—

1.	The wauwau; a pointed stick used as a pick to loosen soil.
2.	The ko; an implement resembling the old Highland spade, and furnished with a detachable footrest. The kaurori take, or kaurori pa was a short form of ko with a strong blade, also used with a teka or footrest as a digging implement to loosen soil.
3.	The rapa maire; a wooden spade, used principally as a shovel, but also as a spade, as in loose friable soils. The puka was a long bladed wooden spade having both sides of the blade reduced to a sharp edge as well as its lower edge. This tool was employed in trimming down scarp batters.
4.	The koko; a form of scoop or short handled shovel, often made by attaching a handle to a piece of the dry inner bark of the totara (Podocarpus totard) tree, such bark being known as rangiura. The curious form of scoop made in the form of a canoe baler by East Coast natives was called an okooko.

When forming a double defence of fosse and rampart, the aim was to utilise the spoil from the former in building up the rampart. The soil was loosened with the ko, kaurori or wauwau, shovelled up with spade or scoop, and dumped along the brow of the fosse within the lines already marked out for the rampart. As the fosse deepened and the rampart rose, the earth was put in baskets (kete) made of green strips of Phormium tenax, or a kind of creel (toi and toiki) made of split supplejack cane (Rhipogonum scandens; the kareao and pirita of the Maori), and so passed up to those engaged in forming the rampart. When the height became too much to so pass the baskets directly by hand, cords were attached to them by means of which the builders hauled them up. In the case of a stiff adhesive soil, such as certain forms of clay, we are told that no kind of binding material was used, but usually the rampart was carried up in alternate layers of earth and such binding material as bracken (Pteris aquilind), manuka brush (Leptospermum ericoides) and, less frequently, the tumatakuru (Aciphylla), the first named was most frequently employed. During the late unpleasantness with the natives in the 'sixties' of last century, we adopted the above method in building our redoubts, adding a banquette to the inner side of the parapet. As each layer of earth was deposited on its layer of binding page 53 page 54 material it was tramped down so as to consolidate it. So covered the fern would resist decay a long time, and, by the time it decayed, the rampart would have become a solid mass, of which only the upper surface would occasionally need renovation. The layers of binding material were called whakapuru.

The natives of the Wai-rarapa district assert that, in some cases, pieces of aka-tea, the durable stem of a climbing plant, were laid transversely across the ramparts as the building thereof proceeded, so that the inner ends projected somewhat from the face of the rampart. This was to enable the garrison to detect any tunnelling operations by an enemy located in or under the outer ditch, such operations would cause the projecting length of aka to move, which would betray the presence of a sapping party. Such a rampart was known as a maioro ranga. This statement appears somewhat dubious to the non-professional mind, but is given for what it may be worth. One might ask:—"What is the whakapuru of your pa?" Should the answer be:—"He ranga," then was it known that such a place would be difficult to take. Another statement was made by a native that slabs of the aerial roots of tree ferns were occasionally used as packing, but such was probably seldom used, as the pliable bracken would be more accommodating and useful. At one part of the Weraroa, a modern, gun fighter's fort, a layer of tree fern trunks seems to have been laid under an outer parapet, but that was probably European work.

The Tapatahi pa at Waipiro, and the Orongo-iri pa, in the same district, the latter seven generations old, are said to have had their ramparts composed of stones with clay worked in between them while in a wet condition. A wall so constructed had pieces of aka poananga (stem of Clematis) mixed with the clay in order to bind the fabric. Such a wall was described as a koperu or parihi.

The writer has seen fosses up to 20 ft. in depth, but some exist that are even deeper.