POOR KNIGHTS ISLANDS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 4 November 1925, Page 8

POOR KNIGHTS ISLANDS.

OLD-TIME OCCUPATION

WELL-BUILT STRONGHOLD

An article by Mr W. M. Fraser in the New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology for September gives interesting facts relating to the Maori occupation of the Poor Knights Islands. Tawliiti, Rahi and Aorangi. Mr Fraser states the most striking feature is the evidences and ruins of a old-time occupation of the islands by a skilled and industrious people. These are in the form of extensive stone works, including, retaining walls, wellplanned cultivation areas, habitations, terraces and defensive walls or ramparts, and two strongly built pas. The principal one occupied the south-east cerner of the southern island. The steep slopes on the hill had been terraced. where practicable, by building heavy stone walls to connect the large natural stone ramparts, of which the hill is largely formed. Mr Fraser writes that in places huge boulders requiring the combined strength of many men to move have been placed in artificial walls. So cleverly was the pa laid out generally that 1000 people could be guarded inside it by a mere handful of defenders. „ , , In n small cave was found a ned composed of common bracken fern and flax mats. To one side of the bed were the remains of a small fire, and along the wall, within reach of the lied, were three pieces of mahoe wood, two of which, contained charred grooves, the other being pointed and blackened at the point. This was one of the methods used for generating fire, by rubbing the pointed stick in the groove. ' On n ridge overlooking the southern shores of the island are small artificial basins neatly cut in large boulders. These, it is considered, were filled with water bv the old-time Maori as a means of attracting birds to be snared.

Mr H. Hamilton, during recent scientific exploration in the southern island, located a cleverly concealed repository of the dead. In a natural cave, high above the sea and accessible only by scaling, with some risk, along the face of the rocky cliff, were found mniiy skeletons of adults, some still dressed in tbe maro or heavy kilt of flax fibre, and others wrapped in closely woven matting. Close bv in a small dry case facin'? the middav sun was a mummified child in a sitting posture, partially nlotbed in a finely woven flax fabric. The few descendants of the islanders, now living on the coast, have a firm belief that a large but well-hidden underground burial cave exists on the northern island, hut this still remains undiscovered.