"While I was in the _kainga_," says Bent, "the local chief went down to the town of Patea, a few miles away, to get me some European clothing. He informed some people in the town that Tu-nui-a-moa, the _pakeha_-Maori, who had been with the Hauhaus for twelve or thirteen years, was in his _kainga_, and next day about twenty Europeans rode up to the settlement out of curiosity to see me. We had a long talk, and they gave me some articles of clothing, and told me all about the white man's world from which I had cut myself off. This was about the end of the year 1878. "After a month's stay we returned to our own village, in a canoe belonging to the Hukatéré natives, loaded with goods and 'tucker.' Five days' paddling and poling up-river took us to Rukumoana. Planting season came round again; then we whiled away the time in Maori fashion--hunting wild pigs, snaring and shooting birds, catching eels, and getting honey--until the crops were harvested. And not long after that we bade farewell to our old _kainga_ for ever, loaded our canoe for the last time, and once more paddled down to Hukatéré." * * * * * [Illustration: KIMBLE BENT, THE PAKEHA-MAORI. (_From a photo taken in 1903._)] From Hukatéré the _pakeha_-Maori and his girl-wife went to Taiporohenui--Bent's old home in the war days. There he lived for a year or so, blanketed like a Maori, and working in the cultivations. Here, too, in the long nights he was much with the old men of the _kainga_, and from such learned men as Hupini and Pokau--true _tohungas_, or priests, and soothsayers--he learned much of the strange occultism of the Maori. He saw singular ceremonies, the rites of the _makutu_, the black art. He learned scores of _karakias_--incantations useful in Maori eyes for all sorts of purposes, all conditions of war and peace time. Some of these were _makutu_ spells by which the wizard could slay an enemy, by witchcraft and the power of the evil eye. Many a case of death from _makutu_ came under Bent's observation during his life among the Maoris. Old Hupini, says the _pakeha_-Maori, undoubtedly killed men with his _makutu_--a combination of three factors: projection of the will force, the malignant exercise of hypnotic influence, and sheer imagination and fright on the part of the person _makutu_'d. Many Maoris believe that the witchcraft can be wrought by an adept or _tohunga_ by taking some of the hair or clothing or even remains of the food of the person intended to be slain, and pronouncing the appropriate powerful _karakias_ and curses over it. The enemy's _hau_--his life-essence, his vital force--then lies in the hollow of the _tohunga's_ hand. A _tohunga_ can take the _hau_ of a man's footprints and thereby _makutu_ him; he can even _makutu_ an enemy's horse so that it will fall sick and not be able to travel!