HISTORIC TARANAKI

Taranaki Daily News, 21 January 1935, Page 7

HISTORIC TARANAKI

VISIT PAID TO KORU PA.

PRE-EUROPEAN STRONGHOLD. The value of explanation of Maori relics was never better illustrated than when a party from the teachers summer school at New Plymouth was conducted over the Koru pa by Mr. W. H. Skinner on Saturday. To the stronger the thicket of young trees met with as soon as the Koru stream is crossed seems nothing unusual. When he is shown that it was once the “marae,” the meeting ground wheri warriors were farewelled or welcomed, the area has a different value. So (l too, have the trenches through which the teachers were led on Saturday.. The military skill shown in the choice of site, the lay-out of the trenches, protected at their exits by a sheer drop to the river, trenches deeply dug, faced with stone that is still to be seen after centuries of use, and, one regrets to say, of abuse, trenches designed to leave each one interlocked with the one above so that each terrace could be defended until the topmost was reached and defeat was certain, the storage pit 3 kumeras, the bolt-holes from the fighting trenches, all these were explained by Mr. Skinner, who also gave the history of the pa. In pursuance of the law of utu (revenge) a war party had left the Koru pa in the early years of last century, said Mr. Skinner, to attack the Rewa Rewa pa at the mouth vf the Waiwakaiho River. The Koru' warriors were successful, and on the ground where the New Plymouth Golf Club’s pavilion stands was held a great cannibal feast. bodies not eaten were “potted down” and brought to Koru. This led to reprisals and the Koru tribe was defeated in turn, the pa being abandoned about the year 1820. •; —-L.... Mr. Skinner gave other information of the association of the tribes at Koru and Oakura with Tahiti. There were records, he said, of one man being, as he thought, insulted by his wives laughing at him, and of his sailing from Oakura for Tahiti, where he arrived. In addition to the Koru pa there was, said Mr. Skinner, another pa of refuge higher in the ranges where similar military skill was discernible. When it was remembered that the trenches were cut with wooden implements, and the stones for their strengthening carried up by hand, the magnitude of the task could be appreciated. Every bit of IJie ranges was known and named by the Maoris; some districts had particular traditions, one of. which was that in a certain part of the ranges when it was misty weather the “little people,” or fairies, came out to play. The gift of Koru pa to the Crown had been made by the Maori owners, _ two women who could trace their pedigree for centuries. It was his hope that the gift would be sufficiently appreciated to prevent vandalism.