TWO PERIODS OF MAORI LIFE 



59 



the earthen floors of former whares remain preserved by the matted 

 growth of an alien grass Poa pratensis. 



Tauranga-koau, the island off the east shore of Tutira lake, was 

 in the beginning a mere bare reef, as its name signifies, " a perching 

 place for cormorants." This natural point of vantage was built up and 

 consolidated by soil shipped from the mainland. As late as '82, 

 though hardly an upright remained in position, quantities of timber 

 not yet utterly rotten lay in shallow water or on the island itself. 

 Many of the prone posts or take of the palisading were still ornamented 

 with the curious top or head supposed to be commemorative of 

 ancestors, and dear to Maori fort-builders. Beneath the water there 



Te Reiva. 



were visible not only the lines of holes sunk for the main defence, but, 

 preserved by water, even remains of the smaller innermost stakes of the 

 breast-work kiritangata. Water was, of course, the principal natural 

 defence of this pa, which could only be reached by canoes, by rafts, and 

 by swimming. 



Other peninsulas have also been occupied, but of their defences 

 little now remains saving natural declivities made more precipitous, 

 beds of broken kakahi shell, collections of splintered stone used in the 

 ovens, and as elsewhere levelled earthen floors. About every one of 

 them also grew in the 'eighties the native grasses already named. On 

 one of these juts of land, Pari-karangaranga, there remained until ten 



