| Disease
European traders, whalers and other arrivals brought with them diseases to which Māori had no immunity. As a result disease spread rapidly, sometimes wiping out whole villages. One plague, known as Te Rewharewha (coughing death), killed hundreds in a matter of weeks. Many old villages were abandoned, the dead left unburied for fear of contagion. These sites remain tapu (restricted) and some, such as at Weriweri, are still used as cemeteries. Entrepreneurship
The impact of disease and musket raids motivated Te Arawa to reunify. The arrival in 1829 of the first European in the region, Captain Phillip Tapsell, was timely. Tapsell traded guns, which gave the tribe a new sense of security. Christian missionaries also served their purpose, introducing Western medicine, technology, education and farming methods. The integration of Christian beliefs with old world values saw a new generation of Te Arawa leaders, politically savvy in both the Māori and Pākehā worlds, bringing new wealth to the tribe. After the battle of Te Tūmū in 1836, realising the tragic consequence of European diseases and weapons, the groups banded together as Ngā Pūmanawa e Waru (the ‘eight beating hearts’ of the children of the ancestor Rangitihi). They vowed never to fight among themselves again.
By the 1860s Te Arawa were trading with markets in Auckland and Sydney. Numerous flour mills and a flax mill, orchards, farms, and fishing and sailing fleets, combined with a family-based work ethic, brought commercial success.
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