Dad saw exorcism intensify before daughter's death

Janet Moses' father asked her to escape with him the night before she died, after watching her grow increasingly dazed during a week-long ceremony to exorcise a Maori curse.

Gerald Moses said people were barred from coming or going from the Wainuiomata house during intense sessions of praying and singing around his daughter in the days before she died, and as family members tried to decipher her incoherent words.

The ceremony was run by family on her mother's side, who refused his requests to call in a kaumatua, Mr Moses said.

He said his daughter was in a trance and was probably exhausted and confused by the intense ceremony, which began on Sunday, October 7, five days before she died.

It was after he left in disgust on the Thursday night, vowing to return the next morning to collect his daughter, that relatives began using large amounts of water to exorcise the makutu.

Six other people were later exorcised, including Ms Moses' 14- year-old cousin who was nearly killed. She was taken to hospital and was later taken into Child, Youth and Family care. The others were aged 14, 15, 16, 29 and 31 and were unharmed.

Mr Moses, who lives in Christchurch, is angry his daughter was given no medical help and was left for dead for eight hours while family members continued to work on her cousin.

"What made them call for help for this 14-year-old and not my daughter? They obviously knew when to stop with the second one.

"I want to know where she died, how she died ... Did anyone try to do cpr on her?" he said. "I am absolutely gutted."

Ms Moses died on the morning of Friday, October 12, drowning in the lounge of her grandparent's home as up to 40 family members watched.

The family believed Ms Moses was cursed after her sister allegedly stole a concrete lion statue from Greytown Hotel.

Mr Moses said that when he arrived on Tuesday to visit his daughter, he was not immediately alarmed by what he saw. But he grew worried as he watched the sessions get more intense and his daughter become more confused.

"She wasn't enjoying it, but she also wasn't herself ... She was in a trance, in a zombie state."

Ms Moses was speaking in broken English and family members wrote down everything she said and tried to decipher it.

At one stage she spoke of having secret bank accounts. "One of the members would stand up and say, `I've got a secret bank account that no one knows about'. He told us what was involved. He promised that he'd stop it."

Mr Moses asked the family members how they knew what to do. "I was told they had done it before, they had seen it done. They were steeped in Maori tradition."

He was told the ritual would take up to two weeks.

Mr Moses said he left about 7pm on Thursday. "I'd had enough. I didn't like what I was seeing." He asked his daughter to come with him but she was confused and pushed him away.

He said he had heard of makutu, and believed in it, but questioned whether his daughter was suffering from a curse. "She wasn't herself, but it was something she could have got treated for."

The Wainuiomata kaumatua who blessed Ms Moses' body after she died said the family took too long to call him.

John Wharehinga said that when he was asked about 5pm on Friday to perform a prayer to free her spirit to the heavens, he was not told how she had died or that she had been dead for so long.

The prayer should have been done straight away, he said.

Mr Wharehinga said he had seen cups of water used in similar rituals about 50 years ago, "but I've never seen that kind of thing in my life".

- © Fairfax NZ News