MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 May 1939, Page 3

MAORI MEMORIES

NEWjZEALAND ONCE DENSELY POPULATED. (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”), In the year 1850, authorities who! sought information concerning the density of. the Maori population in former centuries, were helped by the phenomenal memory of the tribal leaders, many of wnom had never known each other, yet their recitals coincided in all essential points. Then there were the evidences of defence and the remains of stone fire-, places' in the homes, and the great community umu (clay ovens) for cooking the tribal feasts. Seen from a commanding height, every hill top for a distance of fifteen miles was terraced in successive circles the upper sides being from ten to twenty feet high. Each circular trench about eight feet on the lower side and as wide. On many of these conical hills were bubbling springs of pure water for drinking, the overflow being converted into a canal in one of the trenches, thus forming a more effective rampart of defence. In the upper circle were hundreds of oblong spaces six feet by three, twenty feet apart, each surrounded by flat stones forming the rohe kapura (edge of the fireplace) in the sleeping house. In the second lower circle these were 50 feet apart, and in the outer circle 100 feet for the sentries. Between these were great numbers of clay. rua kai (kumera pits) to store the food of the defenders. The food grown on the surrounding plain was fully protected by the sacred law of tapu; an enemy touching it would feel such mental and physical effects as to cause death. In peace or war, the tribes slept within these closely packed walls and ditches, the ladders and bridges being always pulled in for the night.