TWO PERIODS OF MAORI LIFE 



57 



In '82 sites which still showed distinct traces of fortification were 

 Kokopuru far to the west, the peninsulas Oporae and Te Rewa, and the 

 island Tauranga-koau. There were other spots also where evidences of 

 former habitation were discernible ; one sure and infallible sign indeed 

 of ancient Maori settlement was in the 'eighties the appearance of certain 

 native grasses. Danthonia semiannularis and Microlcena stipoides, 

 elsewhere smothered by fern and scrub, survived about the erstwhile 

 whare sites and along the edges of the hard-trodden paths. 



Kokopuru was a cone-shaped hill connected by a narrow ridge with 

 the Otukehu range the "Nobbies." The main defensive work of 

 the pa built on its top was in '82 almost intact. Immense upright 

 totara boles and boughs, placed circlewise about the waist of the solitary 

 hill, then stood black and erect. Undisturbed, this heavy palisade work 



Kokopuru. 



should have lasted for centuries ; it was pulled down and converted, not 

 by me, into fencing posts. This really fine example of a fortified pa 

 now resembles any other peak of the neighbourhood. Signs of former 

 use are almost gone only ash and splintered stone tell of the ancient 

 kitchen midden. In 1919 my daughter discovered what will prove 

 probably the last vestige of native occupation a fragment of totara 

 with tool-marks still visible on its grain. 



Oporae, a minute peninsula on the eastern edge of Tutira lake, also 

 shows signs of fortification. On three sides water was its natural defence, 

 on the fourth a bank and fosse maioro had been cut, which, though 

 partially filled in, is still many feet in depth. On the edges of the 

 level summit cavities remain, out of which have been burned or pulled 

 up, or from which have decayed, the huge posts of the main defence. 



