Abstract
THE MAORI PA.—Bulletin No. 6 of the Dominion Museum, New Zea1and, is an elaborate account of the Maori fort by Mr. Elsdon Best, which, in addition, a generalised description of form, method of construction, and use, deals with a number of the old pas, though his list does not profess to be exhaustive. In no other part of Polynesia did the fortified village obtain to the extent it did in North Island of New Zealand, and although we hear of strongholds, of which those of Tonga most nearly resemble the Maori pa, nowhere do we find these used more or less permanently as they were in New Zealand. In various islands from the Philippines to Hawaii at intervals, some form of defensive work in stone, timber, or earth is found; but the custom of living in these fortified villages seems to have been inherited from the first inhabitants of New Zealand, where, apparently, it was a very ancient institution. According to tradition, when Toi first reached New Zealand in the middle of the twelfth century, the Maori found the earlier peoples already using this form of defensive work, and they may have adopted it from them. It may have been spread to other parts by the inter-course between New Zealand and the other islands.
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Research Items. Nature 120, 965–967 (1927). https://doi.org/10.1038/120965a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/120965a0