Talk:Pā

Image

An image would be a good addition to this stub to start turning it into something worthwhile if someone has or can find one with which can be freely used. -Isthatyou

I have added an interim image of a good model shown in the Auckland War Memorial Museum. Sadly, it is not good from a quality point of view (Camera wasn't up to the lighting). If someone visiting there could make a better one... the model is in the section of the museum on the ground floor to the left of the main doors, if I remember right. MadMaxDog 23:31, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Ruatoruwha

I removed the following, as I could not find evidence online, and the editor did not provide references. As it sounds rather too involved to be vandalism, I copied it here, until someone can provide references.MadMaxDog 09:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

START

• Some of the most famous pas are situated just south of Whakatane, at Ruatoruwha. It was there in 1857 that four impressive pas were built by the local Tuhoe tribe in order to protect themselves from an impending British attack. The pas were simply named 'One', 'Two', 'Three' and 'Four' (Tahi, Rua, Toru and Wha in Māori). After three days of brutal fighting, the British forces were finally able to capture Tahi. Several more days fighting, ensued but the British failed to make further inroads and surrendered eight days after fighting began. The area was named after the three pas that were not captured, Ruatoruwha.

END

Dodgy claim

I've removed the following uncited section:

*The old pā remains found on One Tree Hill, New Zealand are thought to be some of the most extensive earth fortifications of history.

as it verges on the frankly ridiculous. One Tree Hill ain't that big. Go take a look at Maiden Castle, Dorset. I'd like to know who claims this and where. Ont thing I can tell you - it won't have been an archaeologist. 81.159.88.164 (talk) 15:29, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Seems that you are at least partly mistaken. See references. Ingolfson (talk) 03:12, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Im not sure a the reference (Council webpage) is exactly neutral or authoritative. - SimonLyall (talk) 05:30, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, lets just simply become suspicious of EVERYONE. How about adding newspapers, government sources and scientists to the dubious sources to be avoided on Wikipedia? Ingolfson (talk) 02:46, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Rant over - honestly, what do you want, Simon? If you disagree as well, then provide counterreferences. Until then, I will stand on the point that Council refs are orders of magnitude better than either removing a statement alltogether or keeping (any) statement without refs. Ingolfson (talk) 02:46, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

It is more a case that the council ref doesn't give figures on actual area (which we can compare it with the alternatives) and that the coucil website is more likely to be talking up the local attractions than providing an authoritative ref as to sizes of pre-historic earthworks of the world. Which wouldn't worry me as much if the competition wasn't hundreds of kilometres long vs a couple of hills in a central city park. Extraordinary claims require stonger references perhaps. - SimonLyall (talk) 04:07, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

The ARC site does mention 170 terraces, with three separate pas. Auckland City mentions a 5,000-strong population, pretty substantial for any pre-industrial city. You should also remember that we are not talking about the central hill only, and that even that has been strongly reduced by early quarrying. This website from Cornwall park gives the actual pa sizes as 45 hectares (for the pa forts alone, mind you). Would these be acceptable as refs, or do you doubt their neutrality/accuracy? Ingolfson (talk) 07:03, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Ingolfson, there doesn't appear to be any substantiative argument against you as far as I can see. IMHO you should continue, but you could also go further by citing sources predating online Council materials. Many such materials do contain references to what SimonLyall might concede as being more reliable/credible, and many of the latter sources are increasingly available online. The Journal of the Polynesian Society (JPS) for instance, has since the late 19th Century been continually cited by NZ historians, ethnologists and anthropologists, and would undoubtedly fall within wiki's "reliable source" criteria. It is a key source for a lot of (uncited, unfortunately) regional council info throughout NZ, and it is largely searchable from http://www.jps.auckland.ac.nz - hope that's helpful. Kia kaha--Te Irirangi (talk) 06:51, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd add to that, that NZ Archaeologists are notoriously disreputable. For Auckland, try looking up Ian Lawlor, and you might make some headway.--Te Irirangi (talk) 06:56, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Ive walked over both and Maiden Castle is the larger by far.East-west its longest axis is 984m and North -South is 471m.The shape is roughly oval.The flat area inside the fortification is 640m long by an average of 250m wide- about 24 rugby fields ie enormous.Its total area is about .32km2.The One tree Hill Pa is 460m along its long axis and 460m across.Its shape is extremely irregular as it follows the contours of the volcanic cone.There are no large flat areas at all.The area is about .12km2 making it about a third the size of Maiden Hill.NB I have not included the areas of kumara gardens outside the pallisades as they are not really part of the Pa and also are very hard to find now!Claudia Jan 2011 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.153.153.162 (talk) 08:16, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Guns? Howitzers?Cannons?

My understanding is that a Howitzer is an artillary piece designed from the start so that the barrel can be elevated at a high angle(say 45 degrees) so that the projectile plunges into the target from considerable altitude.A gun,(or sometimes field gun) such as the Armstrong used in the Waikato campaign is officially a gun as it is designed to fire directly at the target.The piece has only very small elevation of the barrel.I have seen an Armstrong and had a play with it-the mechanisms were all in working order-the barrel can only be raised a few degrees-I guess to fire at a target on top of a hill, so it is definitely a gun.Other pieces used up north were I believe ships' cannons of the older type firing solid round shot -not the streamlined explosive shell of the Armstrong.The Armstrong was credited with more range and a lot more accuracy.Often the term gun is technically used incorrectly to describe any firearm.In WW2 the British 25 pounder could be used as a Howitzer for long range bombardment of say trenches but then placed on a circular steel track so it could be used as an anti tank gun to fire directly at a mobile tank or armoured car. I dont believe the term howitzer became COMMON till well after the NZ wars but I may be wrong.Claudia.Jan 2011 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.237.35.32 (talk) 01:56, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. Lots of references to "...110-pound Armstrong guns supported by 24-pound howitzers.." around the place, but in Wikipedia and elsewhere I can't see what exactly these would have been - e.g in

. Snori (talk) 05:42, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Help Edit with subheadings

It would make the information more readable if someone could add in the neccessary subheadings to break up the long paragraphs to make the information more visually appealing.Claudia feb 2011 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.58.186.74 (talk) 04:28, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Serious military earth works

Reproduction of the contravallation at the siege of Alesia in 52 BC.

This is wrong: "Serious military earth works were first recorded in use by French military engineers in the 1700s". Military field works were in use long before the 1700s. For example they were extensively used in both the Thirty Years War and the English Civil War, both of which occurred in the 1600s. They were also used in pre-gunpowder times as well for example fieldworks were used by JC at the siege of Alesia that took place in 52 BC. -- PBS (talk) 15:25, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

That's cool. The point was made to counter the incorrect statement that Maori invented earthworks for warfare which was alleged by one of Nz's more silly historians in the 1990s. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.62.226.243 (talk) 04:51, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

My understanding is that NZ historians have never claimed Maori invented earthworks for warfare. They have, however, claimed that Maori invented trench warfare. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.75.238.144 (talk) 07:40, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Style-related problems with this artice

This artice has a lot of problems with style but for starters it would be good to clean up the following:

1) Lots of Maori words are capped for no reason. For example, the word "Pā" appears throughout with caps, even when it is in the middle of a sentence.

2) "Pā" are called "Maori Pā" throughout the article. After the first mention of "Maori", it is sufficient just to use the word "pā" throughout.

I've cleaned up one section myself but can't be bothered working my way through the others so I thought I'd just mention it here for editors who may have the time or energy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.75.238.144 (talk) 07:45, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 14 August 2013

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 16:14, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Pā (Māori) → Pā – Current name was presumably to distinguish from other meanings of "pa". The macron disambiguates just fine. Matthew Proctor (talk) 23:47, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Oppose – we don't usually disambiguate by diacritics alone, as we want redirects from non-diacritic'd versions. Furthermore none of the cited sources use the macron; they just say "pa". Dicklyon (talk) 07:25, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support - the macron will indeed do the disambiguation just fine, and there are redirects in place without macrons, which will happily look after the 'problem' raised by Dicklyon. Schwede66 19:54, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
• Support No-one will look for another use of pa and type in pā. Pā (Māori) and pa (Maori) will redirect here anyway. Adabow (talk) 21:01, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

POV

Currently the article contains a sentence:

"Some historians have wrongly credited Māori with inventing trench warfare with its associated variety of earth works for protection".

This sentence is criticising historians (experts) and as such is expressing a point of view the section ATTRIBUTEPOV in the NPOV policy

Biased statements of opinion can be presented only with attribution. For instance, "John Doe is the best baseball player" expresses an opinion and cannot be asserted in Wikipedia as if it were a fact. It can be included as a factual statement about the opinion: "John Doe's baseball skills have been praised by baseball insiders such as Al Kaline and Joe Torre."

See also WP:INTEXT.

So in this case who is making the accusation. Is it the person in the citation that supports the sentence: "Chris Pugsley.NZ Defence Quarterly." In which case the sentence would read:

Chris Pugsley [a what?] has stated that some historians have wrongly credited Māori with inventing trench warfare with its associated variety of earth works for protection.

The sentences:

Serious military earth works were first recorded in use by French military engineers in the 1700s and were used extensively at Crimea and in the US Civil War.

This is just a nonsense. Serious military earthworks have been in use Europe since medieval times or at least late medieval times (as possibly before the advent of artillery gabions would have served just as well). So certainly by the beginning of the 16th century earth works were in use and were commonly used in both the Thirty Years' War and the overlapping English Civil War. Most of these were restricted to siege warfare but certainly by the War of Spanish Succession general like the Duke of Marlborough were very familiar with the concept of fortified lines and their strategic use (eg Lines of Stollhofen). There is an overview of this in Trench Warfare#Field works with citations to reliable sources. So a better approach would be the use wording similar to but modified as found the paragraph in the article on Trench Warfare that starts: "Nor were fortifications restricted.."

-- PBS (talk) 13:35, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

pah

I think this spelling needs to be mentioned, given that it's common in 19th century sources esp. title of books and paintings. - Snori (talk) 01:49, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

This pahu design should be added to the Pahu page

From 'Traditional designs': "Standard features included a community well for long term supply of water, designated waste areas, an outpost or an elevated stage on a summit on which a pahu would be slung on a frame that when struck would alarm the residents of an attack. The pahu was a large oblong piece of wood with a groove in the middle. A heavy piece of wood was struck from side to side of the groove to sound the alarm." This special-purpose, all-wood type of pahu should be added to the Pahu page, where it is not mentioned. Does anyone have further knowledge of this? The cited source requires login access. Heavenlyblue (talk) 00:38, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Here it is [Fig. 31-35 and 'PAHU—WAR-GONG']: http://www.jps.auckland.ac.nz/document//Volume_42_1933/Memoirs/No._10_Maori_music_with_its_Polynesian_background%2C_by_Johannes_C._Andersen%2C_p_195-252/p1 Heavenlyblue (talk) 01:49, 13 February 2021 (UTC)