68 [PART i. 



CHAPTER V. 



Native Villages and Houses Division of the New Zealand 

 Tribes ; their numerical amount. 



THE houses of the natives are generally collected 

 into villages, which are either fortified by walls and 

 trenches, or with high double or treble fences. 

 Such a place is called E Pa, and is inhabited chiefly 

 in disturbed times, when the whole tribe assembles 

 in it. Being generally situated on the top of a hill, 

 the pas are deficient in water, which the slaves have 

 to fetch from below, at the risk of being shot by the 

 besieging party. Within these walls are the houses, 

 of which several, belonging to one family, stand in 

 an enclosure. The largest are often forty feet by 

 twenty ; they have a portico, a sliding door at the 

 gable end about a foot and a half square, and a 

 small opening as a window on one or both sides of 

 the door. This house serves for the sleeping-room 

 of the members of a family, and they occupy it dur- 

 ing bad weather, and it is here that the women 

 manufacture their mats. The house is not divided 

 into apartments : the sleeping-places are ranged on 



