On some of the earlier deeds and agreements between White and Maori, a chief would sign or make his mark by means of a rough reproduction of his special Moko.
The Maori _pas_ or stockaded and intrenched villages, usually perched on cliffs and jutting points overhanging river or sea, were defended by a double palisade, the outer fence of stout stakes, the inner of high solid trunks.

Between them was a shallow ditch.

Platforms as much as forty feet high supplied coigns of vantage for the look-out.
Thence, too, darts and stones could be hurled at the besiegers.

With the help of a throwing-stick, or rather whip, wooden spears could be thrown in the sieges more than a hundred yards.

Ignorant of the bow-and-arrow and the boomerang, the Maoris knew and used the sling.
With it red-hot stones would be hurled over the palisades, among the rush-thatched huts of an assaulted village, a stratagem all the more difficult to cope with as Maori _pas_ seldom contained wells or springs of water.