Mokemoke Pa

The site of Mokemoke Pa, a small defensive position on the northern heads of Matiatia Bay, can still be easily identified by the terracing on the hillside. Island historian Paul Monin, in a Gulf News history series, [island historian Paul Monin says] in 1992 he and others found four post holes, visible evidence of a pallisade over a natural trench which erosion has since destroyed. Still visible is the housing terrace and kumara pits. Monin believes a small hapu, perhaps of 30 people, lived on the 1200sqm defended headland for probably not much more than a decade between 200 and 500 years ago.