The first of three periods of settlement at Maungapōhatu, Rua arrived at this isolated outpost as the winter set in. Those who were there can still remember the harshness of that first year: the potato crop failed and there were no pigs to be had. Tatu, one of the Riwaiti, had to go back to Te Whaiti to collect 6 sows to start their own breeding colony. At least 50 people died that winter, most of them children, from the inadequacy of the houses, an outbreak of typhoid which came from the valley camps, and a measles epidemic which devastated the community. Sometimes there was nothing to eat but huhu, and the coarse toi leaves, normally used only for clothing. But from this inauspicious beginning, the community struggled on to a first summer of great plenty. Two groups had come together to build 'te pa tapu o te atua', the sacred pā of the Lord, the Tūhoe, about half the entire tribe, and the Whakatohea, who through confiscation were almost landless. To signify the union between these two Mataatua tribes, Rua constructed the house of the Lord, Hiruharama Hou, built with two gables. One side was for Tūhoe and the other for Whakatohea.