Tawhiti Museum

The local museum in Hawera is called the  Tawhiti Museum.  We got a chance to go one Saturday afternoon and it was really interesting.  They've got a large collection of farm implements housed at the museum and several rooms representing Maori and early pioneer life.  The museum is largely the vision of one man, Nigel Ogle and we met and talked with him for a few minutes in the gift shop.

Nigel

I found the Maori displays very compelling.  The initial contact with Europeans took place in the mid-1600s and remained the only contact for about a century.  In the early 1800s, Europeans began trading and introduced firearms to the Maori.  Inter-tribal warfare was well established prior to European arrival and firearms became the primary trade good delivered to the Maori.  The introduction of firearms touched off the Musket Wars in the early 1800s.