DEFENCES OF PA

Press, Volume CI, Issue 30007, 17 December 1962, Page 15

DEFENCES OF PA

Report To Museum Board Defensive features of the Pari Whakaitau pa ait Claverley have recently been revealed by Canterbury Museum expeditions. They confirm tribal accounts that this wias a Ngati Mamoe pa fortified in expectation of Nga» Tabu attack in the early years of the seventeenth century. Mr A. Fomison. the assistant ethnologist at the museum, who was assisted by the Museum Archaeological Society, gave this account to the Museum Trust Board:— “Earlier expeditions had excavated an exploratory trench at the edge of the flat-topped spur on which the pa is situated in an attempt to locate the palisade line that tribal history has associated with the site. On the present expedition the trench was extended downhill, and on the second-to-last day a row of closely-spaced post ho’es uncovered is believed to represent the main palisades. “On the uphill side of the main row, a line of more openly spaced holes suggested a secondary palisade line, while, on the opposite side, a sequence of post holes was found to extend downhill in a rectangular pattern It is probable that these latter were the poets of a fighting stage which was erected over the main palisadie as a vantage point from .which stones and spears could be hurled down against attack along that side. “The inner corner-posts of this stage seem to have been on the inner palisade, and its extension back to this line was probably to ensure that, even if the outer palisade were taken, the stage

could still be held. “The evidence suggested a gateway through the inner palisade at the point excavated, although there did not seem to be a corresponding one in the outer. This would be in accord with known practice, as it was common for the gateway through one defensive Line to be at a different point on the perimeter from that of a second, so that an enemy who had forced one would have to traverse a narrow lane between the palisades, and would be easily trapped before reaching the second gate. “So nt can be presumed that at Pari Whakatau the outer gateway was further round the perimeter from the trench Further ingenuity was apparent in the position of this inner gateway, in that it was placed directly under the fighting stage and so gained the immediate benefit of its protection."