WW Aa OO 
. made, one of the wondrous works of old! in those Notes of mine, 
Corzxso.— /gnorance of Ancient New Zealander of Use of Projectiles, 118 
Mr. Phillips also gives an account of a ‘ pigeon spear," made out of 
a rough unworked piece of a “raataa vine.”(!) Just so; that is the poor 
modern spear, hastily put together by the lazy, loquacious, itinerating Maori 
of modern days! but such make-shifts were not (commonly) used by his 
forefathers, although I have seen them* stored up in the mountain forests ; 
they were far above it.| And then follows the novel idea of “ trapping the 
brown parrot by means of a shorter hand-spear.”(!) As if parrots were 
ever caught in that way! The Maoris had but one general mode of taking 
the parrot (kaakaa), which was admirably adapted and serviceable, and is 
still in use in the dense forests of the interior. 
My Note, referred to at p. 106, is as follows :—'* Note 7, par. 15, § 2. 
—Travelling beyond the East Cape in January, 1838, I arrived at Waipiro 
(Open Bay), and striking inland over high hills reached a place called Tapa- 
tahi, where were the remains of a famous stronghold or pa of the olden time. 
This fort is strongly situated on the abrupt precipitous end of a high hilly 
yet narrow range, and made impregnable by art; the only possible way of 
access leading from the top of the ridge, but this the Maoris had completely 
secured by cutting a deep fosse across it. The Ngatimaru tribe, arriving in 
their canoes from the North, well armed with muskets for the purpose of 
slaughter, the people of this neighbourhood took refuge in their stronghold 
on the crag, where they were regularly besieged. Several hundreds of 
Maoris were cooped up in it, and for some time the place was closely 
invested; and though provisions fell short among them there was no outlet 
of escape. The besiegers getting both tired and hungry (!)—for the entrance 
end of the fort was made so high above the deep-cut fosse that musketry 
could effect nothing, unless any one of the besieged wilfully exposed him- 
self—at last the besiegers hit upon a mode of attack and assault which 
proved successful; they prepared sticks with dry combustibles fastened to 
one of their ends, while to the other was tied a strip of flax-leaf, and the 
wind being favourable, they set fire to them, and then whirled and flung 
those flaming darts across the ditch into the pa, where, alighting on the dry 
thatch roofs of the houses and sheds, the whole was soon on fire; then, in 
the confusion, the assault was made, under cover of their muskets, and the 
slaughter was very great, even for a successful Maori attack! Many of the 
unfortunate besieged threw themselves down the precipice in sheer despera- 
tion, and only a very small number escaped with their lives. There is a 
small moat or pool of deep water close to the base of the precipice on one 
* That is, a spear-head, fitted on to the rough stem of a large creeper (vine): but 
never on a raataa ( Metrosideros robusta ). 
+ If I mistake not there will be a full description of a ** pigeon spear," and how it was 
