page_title: Pā
section_title: Examples
hierarchical_section_title: Pā / Examples
caption_attribution_description: English: view of Huriawa Peninsula, Karitane, New Zealand, from Puketeraki Lookout
context_page_description: The word pā can refer to any Māori village or defensive settlement, but often refers to hillforts – fortified settlements with palisades and defensive terraces – and also to fortified villages. Pā are mainly in the North Island of New Zealand, north of Lake Taupo. Over 5,000 sites have been located, photographed and examined although few have been subject to detailed analysis. No pā have been yet located from the early colonization period when early Polynesian-Māori colonizers lived in the lower South Island. Variations similar to pā are found throughout central Polynesia, in the islands of Fiji, Tonga and the Marquesas Islands.
  In Māori culture, a great pā represented the mana and strategic ability of an iwi, as personified by a rangatira. Pā are located in various defensible locations around the territory of an iwi to protect fertile plantation sites and food supplies.
  Almost all pā are found on prominent raised ground, especially volcanic hills. The natural slope of the hill is then terraced. Dormant volcanoes were commonly used for pā in Auckland. Pā are multipurpose in function.
context_section_description: The old pā remains found on One Tree Hill, close to the center of Auckland, represent one of the largest known sites as well as one of the largest prehistoric earthworks fortifications known worldwide.
  Pukekura at Taiaroa Head, Otago, established around 1650 and still occupied by Māori in the 1840s.
  Rangiriri (Waikato), a gunfighter pā built in 1863 by Kingites. This pā resembles a very long trench running east west between the Waikato River and Lake Kopuera with swampy margins. At the high point was a substantial earth works with trenches and parapets. The pā was bombarded from ships and land using Armstrong Guns.
  Nukuhau pā, Waikato River near Stubbs Road. This is a triangular shape pā formed on a flat raised spur with the Waikato River on one side 200m long, a gully with a stream on the long west axis 200m long and two man made ditches on the narrower southern axis, 107m long. The average slope to the river is 12m at an angle of 70 degrees.
  Huriawa, near Karitane in Otago, occupied a narrow, jagged, and easily defended peninsula built in the mid 18th century by Kai Tahu chief Te Wera.
caption: This view of Huriawa Peninsula shows how Māori often chose nearly impregnable natural landforms as pā sites.
exif: {}