Pa is a Maori word that can describe any village or defensive settlement, though it most often refers to a hillfort, a fortified settlement built with palisades and defensive terraces. Maori built pa on defensible ground, especially raised volcanic hills, to safeguard resources and territory, incorporating food storage pits for kumara and wells alongside their defensive works. More than 5,000 pa sites have been located, photographed and examined, occurring mainly in New Zealand's North Island north of Lake Taupo. A substantial pa signified the mana, the prestige and strategic strength, of the iwi or tribal confederacy that built and held it.
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