Maori at war

Press, 11 January 1986, Page 15

Maori at war

The author and film maker Gordon Ell and an Auckland enthnologist, David Simmons, have combined their skills to make a 30-minute documentary “Shadows on the Land,” showing the development of the Maori fighting pa and revealing how Maori skills at warfare taught the British new ways to fight. It screens on Two at 6 p.m. today.

Simmons tells the story by visiting historic pa sites in the Bay of Islands, Tongariro, Auckland City,

Mount Maunganui and the Waikato region. He traces the development of the Maori pa from the first fortifications built to defend the kumara gardens, though the tribal wars of the 1820 s when the pa was adapted for a new form of warfare using cannons and muskets, to the land wars between the British and the Maori which began in the 1840 s.

Simmons shows evidence of the development of a system of trench warfare with bunkers and rifle pits developed by the Maori, which so impressed the

British that they copied it. Books published at the time by the British, detail these defence tactics of the Maori. Simmons believes there is overwhelming proof that it was the Maori system that was used as the model for trench warfare in World War 1.

Ell chose to show pa sites in the film that are situated in accessible public places and historic reserves, so that any interested people may visit them to learn more about our archeological heritage.