MOUNT EDEN PA.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 30, 6 February 1928, Page 6

MOUNT EDEN PA.

It certainly is a mistake to acccpt the so-called model pa at Whakarewarewa as a pattern for the Maori stockade and entrenchment which is to be erected on Mount Eden. In the first place, the ground contour at Whakarewarewa is altogether different from that of our Maungawhau. The Government pa, designed as a reproduction to some extent of the ancient palisaded villages of the Maori, was constructed on a level piece of ground terminating in a cliff above the Puarenga Stream. There was an old entrenchmention this site, the Rotowhio Pa, occupied bv tho Ngati-Tama tribe several centuries ago, but nothing remained of it but some ditches, a portion of which is still to be seen within the lines of the present pa. So far as the dwellings and storehouses in the pa are concerned the place is sufficiently correct, and the watch towers are sufficiently true to type, but the stockade and tho trenches, the two most important features, are merely a makeshift, quite inadequate to give the pakeha and the modern Maori an accurate idea of the appearance of a fortified hamlet such as those which stood on these hills in ancient times.

It is a mistake, in my opinion, for a borough council engineer to attempt the construction of such a place. It is a task for experts, preferably Maoris. There are still living a number of Maoris who could supervise or advise in the building of a replica of a pre-pakeha pa. These men fought in the era of firearms, of course, but they know exactly how their ancestors fortified such admirable sites as Mount Eden. The Akarana Maori Association could, I am sure, take the job in hand if the Mount Eden Borough Council contented itself with attending to the financial side. Terraces, trenches, fighting stages, strong palisades (preferably totara or puriri), carved gateways and other furniture of a pa should be a reproduction so far as possible of a fort of Captain Cook's time.

By the way, there is a detailed description of a pa at Mercury Bay, seen by Cook and his officers on their first visit to New Zealand, which should be consulted in the Voyages; and there are many others. t But there is no need to depend on books. Native genius is equal to the task of designing a village fortress which shall in every detail be free pakeha notions. —TANGIWAL