Located in a remote area of the Urewera bush country about 20 kilometres (12 mi) north of Lake Waikaremoana, it was founded by Rua Tapunui Kenana in 1907 and was substantially rebuilt twice during the next two decades.

Today, much of the land is contained within Te Urewera National Park, which has an area of 2,126 square kilometres (821 sq mi) and which in 2013 had a population of only 2,133.

[5] The State Highway 38 is the only major arterial road that crosses it, running from Waiotapu near Rotorua via Murupara to Wairoa.

Because of its isolation and dense forest, Te Urewera remained largely untouched by British colonists until the early 20th century; in the 1880s it was still in effect under Māori control and few Pākehā were prepared to risk entering the area.

[6] Following Premier Richard Seddon’s visit to Te Urewera in 1894 the Tūhoe chief Tutakangahau requested a Union Flag from the government.

The words “Kotahi Te Ture/Mo Nga Iwi E Rua/ Maungapōhatu” (One law/for both peoples/Maungapōhatu) were stitched onto it and it had been created as a sign of a peaceful relationship with the Crown.

[7] The words were chosen to affirm “the important principle that the dominant culture should not pass laws discriminating against Māori.”[8] Rua Tapunui Kenana, a grandson of Tutakangahau, was a Māori prophet, faith healer and land rights activist.

[11] After a mystical experience on the mountain of Maungapohatu, Rua claimed to be the successor to Te Kooti and the Māori brother of Christ.

At least fifty 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.

To signify the union between these two Mataatua tribes, Rua constructed the "House of the Lord", Hiruharama Hou, built with two gables.

This circular meeting house was decorated with a design of blue clubs (Rua's personal symbol) and yellow diamonds, and stood within the inner sanctum of the pa.

The internal design with its two doors, winding staircase and "windows of narrow lights" was more solidly based on the biblical record.

[15] By 1908 Rua's struggle for power had brought the Tuhoe to the brink of civil war and the Prime Minister Sir Joseph Ward intervened in an attempt to curb the prophet's influence.

[18] This was taken by the establishment as sedition and finally gave the Government and Rua's detractors the incentive to intervene against him and the Maungapohatu community.

There was no violent resistance from Rua personally[10] but he refused to submit to arrest, and his supporters fought a brisk half-hour gun battle with the police.

Although the supreme court had found Rua's arrest illegal and a legal petition had been drafted to Parliament on 1 May 1917 on behalf of the Maungapohatu people calling for a full public inquiry into the events of April 1916, the behaviour of the police there and the subsequent intimidation of witnesses, no compensation was ever offered.

[13] A typhoid epidemic broke out in the community in early in 1925 and after Laughton left in 1926 Rua organised the construction of a whole village for the third and final time.

"[27] Ngāi Tūhoe had donated 16,000ha of land to the government in 1922 so that roads could be built to connect Maungapohatu with the eastern Bay of Plenty and Ruatahuna but they were not constructed.

In 1964 a road was finally built to the tiny settlement by a timber company and more than 1500 people attended the opening celebrations.

For a few years the milling operations brought "modest prosperity to this isolated and impoverished area, which had never recovered from the exodus of most of its inhabitants" after the close of Rua's experiments in collective living.