Wainuiomata mākutu lifting

In October 2007, 22-year-old Janet Moses died and a 14-year-old female relation was injured during a mākutu lifting (or exorcism) in the Wellington, New Zealand suburb of Wainuiomata. In 2009, nine members of Moses' extended family, all siblings of her mother or their spouses, were charged in relation to the event, one uncle and four aunts were subsequently found guilty of drowning Moses.

The mākutu lifting and subsequent trial were notable for bringing makutu into the public consciousness in New Zealand; and the large number of independent people who stepped forward to distance makutu lifting as they knew it from the events in this case. Unprecedented media attention was paid to mākutu, mākutu lifting and Māori religion.

Mākutu is a Māori language word which can be either a noun or a verb depending on context, it is translated into English by church missionaries as curse, witchcraft or sorcery. In modern orthography mākutu is written with a macron where technically possible, but in historical sources and sometimes in modern sources (such as newspapers) with limited technical capabilities it is written without the macron.

Historically, the tohunga involved in lifting mākutu were suppressed by the Tohunga Suppression Act 1907, which was repealed in 1962.

In the period prior to the mākutu lifting, Janet Moses had suffered the loss of her grandmother and relationship problems with her partner and father of her two children; the trial would later hear expert testimony that she likely had an "underlying psychiatric or psychological disorder." A concrete lion was stolen from a Greytown hotel by family members, and was to become associated by family members with Moses' behavior; the family said she was acting like a lion. The family emblem was a lion, with at least one family member having a tattoo of a lion and the words 'Family united' over it.

When they became concerned with her behaviour, Moses' family consulted kaumatua (elder) Timi Rahi, who prayed for her and blessed her, and advised the family to return the lion, which they did. Rahi instructed the family that it was their responsibility to carry out the healing. After Rahi left, a prolonged mākutu lifting was performed by her predominantly maternal family at the Wainuiomata flat of Moses' late grandmother. There was no evidence as to who suggested that Moses was possessed or suffering from a curse, or who suggested that a mākutu lifting was required. The ceremony was improvised, as none of those involved had any knowledge of the procedure for a mākutu lifting. During the ceremony, so much water was used that the carpet had become soaked, and so a small hole in the floor had to be made for drainage. The girl's eyes were injured as people picked at the demons they saw in them, and neighbours heard rhythmic stomping and thumping throughout the night.

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