Amongst the prayers and ceremonies which old Hupini taught Bent were the _karakia_ for combating the evil spell of the _makutu_ and for restoring a bewitched and ailing person to health and safety--to the Land of Light and Life, the _Ao-marama_. One of these rites Bent describes in true Maori fashion: A person is taken seriously ill; it is the _makutu_. The wise man is called in; he divines that the illness is caused by another _tohunga's_ witchcraft. At daylight in the morning the sick man is carried to the water-side. The wise man then takes three small sticks or twigs (_rito_)--fern-sticks will do--and sets them up by the side of the river or the pool. One of these sacred wands represents the invalid, one the tribe to which he belongs, and one the mischief-working wizard (_te tangata nana te makutu_). A charm is said over them, and then two _rito_ are taken away, leaving only one--that for the wizard--the "wand of darkness." An incantation, beginning: "_Toko i te po, te po nui, te po roa_" ("Staff of the night, the great night, the long night"), etc., is repeated over this wand. When this is said the priest conducts the sick person to the edge of the water and sprinkles water over his body, repeating as he does so a charm to expel the _makutu_ spirits from his body, ending with a curse upon the malevolent wizard--"Eat that _tohunga makutu_, let him be utterly eaten and destroyed." When this is ended the patient is taken back to his house. He is told that the wise man has, by virtue of his very strong charms, seen the rival _tohunga makutu_, and that it will not be long before that evil man dies. The curse falls, the wizard is himself _makutu_'d, and the invalid--perhaps--recovers. About the year 1881 Bent--now able to venture into the towns of the _pakeha_ again in safety--left Taranaki, and travelled to Auckland and up to the Waikato. Then he went on to the west coast, and spent some months amongst the Maoris of the Ngati-Mahuta tribe, living in the historic old settlement Maketu, on the shores of Kawhia Harbour, close to the legendary landing-place of the Tainui canoe--the Waikato Maoris' pilgrim ship. Tawhiao, the Maori King, was then living at Kawhia, and he asked Bent to remain with him and be his _pakeha_ and interpreter. The white man was now, however, wearying to be back in his old home, Taranaki. "Tawhiao," says Bent, "insisted on me remaining with his tribe, but I repeated a Maori incantation which I had been taught by the _tohungas_ in Taranaki, a _karakia_ used as a charm by strangers (_tangata tauhou_) who may desire to leave the place where they are staying on a visit and proceed to a new _pa_, and who fear obstruction. The charm begins: "'_Ka u, ka u, ki tenei tauhou, Ki tenei whenua tauhou._' "When the old king heard me repeat the incantation he exclaimed: "'Ha, so you are a _tohunga_!' "'Yes, I am,' I replied.