MAKUTU.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVII, Issue 5, 31 January 1912, Page 62

MAKUTU.

A STORY OF THE BLACK ART

Specially written by' JAMES COWAN, for the “ Weekly Graphic.”

THE story of the old-time Maori abounds in incidents of savage magic, The real Tohunga Maori is extinct, but the belief in “Makutu," or witchcraft, still lingers. ■Here is a modern and hitherto unwritten instance of the curiously persistent belief in the “black art.” The particular interest of this illustration of makutu and its antidote lies in the faet that the incident was witnessed by a white man. It is also a remarkable instance of the survival of purely savage and heathen sacrosanct ceremonies up to the time of the present generation. The white man who witnessed the makutu rite was Kimble Bent, the pakeha-Maori, some of whose stirring bush adventures I have already narrated in the “Graphic.” V hen in Wellington a few weeks ago he told me the story. In the year 187'5, Kimble Bent (Tu-nui-a-inoa the Maoris called him, and still call him) had emerged from his exile in the Upper Patea forests, and was living witii his Maori friends at the large native village of Taiporo henui. not far from the township of Hawera, Taranaki. It was one of the principal villages of the Ngati-Ruanui tribe; in that fighting savage elan Matangi-o-Rupe, Bent’s chief and “owner,” was a leading man. Bent had had to wife Rupe's daughter, a handsome girl named Te Hau-rutu-wai—“The Wind-That Shakes-the Raindrops Down”: she was dead. The youngest child of the family at this time was a boy of about ten years old, named Whaipakanga. Now this boy, at the time of our story, lay sick unto death. The family were pouri indeed, and were already thinking of making preparations for the tangi. Bent’s own opinion was that his young brother-in-law had fever of some kind; beyond that he could eay nothing. As the boy lay there sick in a little whai-au or hospital-shed, erected close to the entrance of Rupe’s thatched wharepuni, a tohunga happened along. This tohunga was Hupini, the greatest sorcerer and warlock on the Plains. He was a very big medicine-man indeed. He was popularly accredited with dreadful occult powers; with the ability to kill an enemy, even though that enemy might be very far away, by the projection of will-power, and the hurling through space of his magic charms and spells. Killing by “wireless,” in faet, Whaka-Maori. Hupini originally came from Wanganui. He was tattooed of face, sharp and glittering of eye; short and lean; between fifty and sixty years of age. Hupini had not been long in the village before Rupe requested him to come and look at his sick boy. He suspected makutu, but he desired an authoritative diagnosis of the trouble from a professor of the .sorcerer’s dark trade. The tohunga gazed intently at the invalid in silence for some moments, watched anxiously by Rupe and his family. Presently he turned to Rupe and uttered two words. “Kua makutnria! the is bewitched.) "Ha!" said Rupe; “1 thought as rv .h. But who in have done this Tuurikrous tinnz? I have no enemies In the kaiu-za." Wait." said Hupini. impressively. “Wait. At sunrise to-morrow be Ti id with the bov. I shall return then, an I I shall tell you the name of the man who has east his evil spell vi m ymrr -on. Remain yon there, all Graming hi- spearheaded walkingst iff. the man of nivsterv left the Rupe ’ ■ i—hold to dige-t hi- diagnosis at their h i-ure. r h*' - in had not' vet ri-en over the dill aoxts that fi'a o-d 1 ■>iuorohenili. rm (he f-ilbcving >normng. when a little rr< <—don moved from Rune's mauuka- ■ ed eotirtvunl and passed down the 11 d'rride to a small stream that flowed around the outskirts of the kaingn. A ’aw mis* lay over the jJsins .and the ferny hilia. It wan a aluvery dawo.

The invalid, the turoro, was carried upon a rough litter by Rupe and his wiiite man, Kimble Bent. Hupini, the tohunga, walked sn front; bis lips moved in a half-heard runfc ehant. Behind the turoro’s litter walked Rupe’s mother and her children. At such a scene as this only the immediate relatives of the sick one could be present. When the family reached the bank of the quiet little brook, slipping down through its ferns and overhanging shrubs, Hupini bade the bearers set the sufferer down. Then, watched in painfully intense silence by the little group, the wizard plucked from the centre of a clump of toetoe, or swampgrass, three long shoots (rito). Taking these toetoe shoots in his left hand, Hupini held them up in view of the watchers. Then he took one of them in his right hand, and raising it in the air, he said: "Tenei mo te iwi” (“This is for the tribe”), and stuck it in the ground, close by the margin of the stream. Taking the second rito, he cried: “Tenei mo te turoro” ("This is for the sick one”), and also stuck it upright in the soft ground. Uplifting the third toetoe stalk, the priest, addressing Rupe, said: “Tenei mo te tangata kino nana i hanga kino i te tamaiti nei” (“This is for the evil man Who has wrought evil on your child”). This, also, he set in the ground. And this is the powerful karakia. the incantation, he recited over the fatal rito: — Toko koe te po, Te po nui, Te po roa, Te po uriuri, Te po whawha, Te po ka kitea. Tenei toko ka tu. Toko koe te ao, Te ao nui, Te ao roa, Te ao whekerekere, Te ao vvhatu ma, He oti atu kite ao! Translated, this ie what the wizard recited:— This is the stall of Night (Death), The great Night, The long Night, The gloomy Night, The Night snatched away, The Night beholden (The tohunga has discovered the dark deeds of the “makutu”-worker). Here stands this staff. The staff for the light of Day f The great Day, The long Day. The Day of lowering sky, Thou’rt done forever with this world of light! Turning to Rupe, the priest said: “The man who has bewitched your son is closely related to you. What shall I do with him?” The father replied: “Tukua kia mate!” (“Let him die!”) Then said the tohunga, speaking as if to the actual form of the worker of witchcraft: “Haere ki to moenga roa me o kino!” i "Go to your long sleep, you and your evil deeds!”) The three toetoe stalks, now spoken of as toko or pou (staff, pillar), stood in a row by the stream-edge. A curious thing now liappeped. Just as the father had replied . "Let him die!” iximble Bent’s d«,g, which had followed the party down from the village, ran forward and pulled tlie third toko—the makntu-man’s toko —out of the ground, and let it drop a few feet away. The priest did not interfere, but watched the dog with something like reverence in his eyes. Of a surety here was a sign! The tohunga turned to Bent and said, “He atua to kuri! He atua ki a koe! Kia pai te atawhai i te tangata!” (“Your dog is a god! You, too. have a god! Be kind and harm not men!”) He probably thought that the white man had a knowledge of the wiles of the evil eye. anti «o warned him to harm not hi® fellow men.

Mor® karakias the -, medicine-man recited, in quick rhythmic tones. These dread invocations of the powers of evil ended, he took the tokos representing the invalid and the tribe from the ground, and going to a small tree which stood on the stream side he carefully laid them in its fork. They- were tapu, and must not be allowed to lie about where anyone might unwittingly touch them. The toko pulled out of the ground by the pakehaMaori s dog was allowed to lie where it was. Now, the t ohunga, his eyes fixed and fearful to look upon, recited in quick sharp tones his final death-dealing incantation, the magie "Karakia whakamate.” Its burden was “Let this evil man, the worker of witheheraft, be destroyed, be utterly destroyed. Let him go unto the Night, the Great Night, the Long Night, the Night of Black Darkness!” And the wizard ended on a long breath with a quick forwaril jerk of his hand, and his glassify set eyes projected until theyalmost seemed to start out of his head. Now, the tattooed priest resumed his ordinary- air and tone, and said to Rupe: "Carry- the boy- back to your home. He will recover now. Before many days you will hear more news.” The Rupe household, tapu dog and all, returned to their kainga. They entered their house, and Hupini, following them in, carefully closed the sliding door and window. Then, bending over the invalid, he recited this short prayer : — "I unuhia a Nuku I unuhia a Rangi,

Maunutanga, Mareretanga, O tenei tauira O tenei ariki.” The purport of this karakia was:— "Release the evil spirit from this sufferer, O Spirits of the Earth! Release this evil spirit, Q Spirits of the Sky! Let the evil fly from him. let it be east from him, from the body of this sacred one, of this chief!” Then, going outside the house, the medicine-man scooped up a handful of earth, and east it on to the thatched roof. This was the final act of the mystic ritual. ; Behold the sequel! The boy began to recover fast, and in a few days was well. Faith had worked wonders. As for the enemy who had —according to Hupini—wrought the evil deed, Nemesis, in the form of the Maori Whiro, was on his trail. Hupini had told Rupe his name; it was that of a relation of his who lived at Parihaka, and who had some reputation as a tohunga and a easter of spells. In a week news came from Parihaka that this man was dead. Of what did he die? It depends upon your point of view, pakelia or Maori. If pakeha, it may have been typhoid or influenza, or measles, or "jealousy” that carried him off. Ko wai e mohio! Who can tell? But in the mind of Rupe and hie household—and also in that of the saturnine tohunga—there was no doubt whatever as to the cause of death. It was a clear case of Makutu countering makutu, of a superior tapu slaying an inferior one, of curses recoiling upon the eurser, of the biter bit. "The man recovered from the bite, The dog it was hat died.” There are a few questions that occur to one just here. Did Hunini have a delicate hint conveyed to the Parihaka practitioner of the black art that he. (Hupini) had “put the c-omether on him"? If so, did the First Wizard hava nothing up his sleeve, so to speak, no superior tohunga that he could call in to put the comether on Hupini in return? Did the First Wizard die of sheer fright at having been solemnly cursed back by the Second Wizard? Or did he die unwotting the cause of his seizure, the fatal projection of Hupini's vengeanceworking will through space, the victory of mind over matter? Or was it just a coincidence —our material way of shrugging away anything we don't happen to understand? Again——who can tell? The subsequent history of the nrakutu’d and makutu-enred boy. Whai-Pak-anga may as well be told to complete the story. When he was about seventeen years old he took a young girl as wife, and lived with her at the Waitara. At eighteen he died. His wife, greatly grieving, resolved not tn long survive her husband. Elie brewed an infusion of the leaves of the tutu and Wharangi shrubs—a deadly poison, well known to the Maoris. Drinking this, she died in a very few bourse.. And Whai-Pakanga ami his girl-wife were buried in the one gray*.