Brst.—Miramar Island and its History. 783 
of stockades was a pekerangi, in which the palisades are lashed to the rails, 
but do not reach the ground, there being an open space of about 1 ft. 
below them. ext came the matahao, a stockade erected in a slanting 
position, leaning outwards. Inside that was the katua, or main stockade, 
composed of heavy timbers. The main posts were 5 fathoms in length, 
and the secondary posts 3 fathoms, while the palisades were 2 fathoms. 
The waharoa, or entrance-passage to the pa, was stockaded on both sides. 
There were two fighting-stages above the entrance gateway, and others 
on either side of the waharoa. The approach to the water-supply was 
also defended by stockades. Possibly this water-supply was the spring 
on the western side of the ridge. The two principal houses in the village 
were named “ Raukawa ” and * Whare-rangi "—the first after the Maori 
name of Cook Strait, and the second after the site of “ Wharekura,” a sacred 
Miramar—so named after a place on the shores of the Adriatic. 
ellington Harbour was named after Tara, son of Whatonga, who 
was the son of a Mouriuri woman, an aboriginal. Many of the crew of 
* Kurahaupo " had married aboriginal woman at Maketu, the place where 
Rua-kapanga, brother-in-law of Toi, had been so amazed by the sight of 
a number of moa, a creature that was not then extinct. For the euphonious 
name of the harbour, Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara (The Great Harbour of Tara), 
we have to thank Te Umu-roimata, wife of Tara. He himself intended 
to call it Tawhiti-nui, after one of the old island homes of the Polynesian 
olk. ; 
Te Whetu-kairangi was held to be an important village, hence it was 
placed under the protection of the gods Tuhinapo and Tunui-a-te-ika. 
was the eponymie ancestor of the Ngai-Tara tribe that occupied this 
i ictori Wai-hirere pa was 
J d Mount Victoria to Island Bay. e Wai-l | 
d Point Teenis jiin, the native name of which is Omaru-kai- 
kuru—which name seems to denote a remembrance of the breadfruit of 
Polynesia. The Akatarewa village was built on the summit of the ridge 
