One Man Reveals His Frightening Encounter With A Maori Curse

One Man Reveals His Frightening Encounter With A Maori Curse:

Do you believe in curses? Well, this is a true story of a man who didn’t believe in the spiritual realms until he himself had an astounding encounter with not just a curse but a Maori Curse (known as a Makutu) that might just make you a believer.

• Written By Johnny Frahm
• Edited By Emmy Love

Johnny Frahm

My story began in November 1997. My cousin Marty invited me on a spring hunt into the Urewera National Park.

We went to an area that neither of us has been to before. The hut we stayed in was called Parahaki, which has since burnt down killing two people.

There were 5 of us in the hunting party. We all hunted for a couple of days with no luck, so we decided to go further afield for a look.

Marty and I headed over the hill to stay at another hut called Totara. We had no luck there either but on the way back to Parahaki we shot a couple of small pigs, which we ate over the next day or so.

Marty wanted to go for a look upstream to a place called White’s clearing. It’s an old farm in the middle of the Ureweras. It was about a 5-hour walk, so we left before sun up to get a good hunt in on the way. I’m walking in front with Marty about 30m behind. He called me back to look at something.

Lying in the stream right where I’d walked was a perfectly round log. Marty started to point out that it wasn’t just a log. There were carvings on it. We could see eyes and mouths and diamonds carved into the log. It looked very old, and the carvings weren’t carved out like the ones you see today, they were cut into the pole. Marty wanted to lift it out of the stream to look at it properly.

Now I’ve never really put much thought into Maori beliefs or religion. I never really believed in the tapu items around the place, but I didn’t want to touch this one. Marty tried but couldn’t lift it. I never offered to help or tried to touch it. I have no idea why, but I just didn’t want to.

We left it there in the stream and carried on to the farm. Marty was quite keen to find out if the old guy on the farm knew about it and wanted to tell him all about it. So we got to the farm and met Doug. I had a cup of tea and talked about the carving. Doug knew nothing about it and was keen to get a look at it. So we left before him and headed back to our camp. As we passed the carving Marty hammered a lump of wood into the ground to try and mark it out for Doug. Then we left it where it was.

The rest of our stay in the bush was uneventful with nobody seeing any deer to shoot. This was the first time I’d been on a spring hunt, and nothing had been shot. We flew out of the bush at the end of the week. Once Marty and I were home, I got a real uneasy feeling. Like something was terribly wrong. I had no idea what or why but the feeling was so intense I asked everybody around me if anything was going on I didn’t know about. Nobody had any answers for me. I let it go and carried on.

Over the next few weeks, we noticed a sparrow was coming in the house a lot. It would come in and hop around, and it never panicked if you chased it away. It never hit a window or went very far. I even noticed it coming in and hiding inside. Sometimes it would stay overnight. It wasn’t even afraid of the cats or dogs.

Gradually over the coming weeks, I started to lose my appetite, and my energy levels plummeted. I had a constant headache and started losing weight. I lost about 10kg in a few weeks and couldn’t eat a proper meal. I’d go to bed early and then wake up late. I would get up walk to the kitchen and have 2 bites of a piece of toast then go and sleep on the couch. Time to see a doctor.

I had blood tests and stayed overnight, being monitored on two occasions in two different hospitals. Nothing showed up, so they sent me home. I started to get hot and cold fevers. Sweat profusely and then 15 minutes later need 3 extra blankets because I was freezing.

Christmas came, and I could hardly join in on the celebration. I ate a small lunch with everybody and then went and slept in a chair for the afternoon. A couple of days later, I was talking to a close family friend, and he was wondering what could be wrong with me.

We ended up talking about our hunt, and the carving got bought up. I told him about it, and he got very nervous. He left not long afterward and went to see a friend of his about it. That evening I got a call from him saying he was coming to pick me up. He told me he spoke to his friend and this guy that I had never met described me to him and said they’d been waiting to hear from me. He said my friend should bring me to another guy who was a Tohunga as soon as possible.

So, we met with the Tohunga; he sat me down and asked me about the carving. I told him the story of finding it, and Marty trying to move it and then marking the spot with the branch. When I had finished, he told me to tell him the whole story again, so I did from the start. Again when I got to the end, he asked me to tell him again, so I did. After the third time, he said there was something I wasn’t telling him that he needed to know. He asked me where the carving was now. I told him I didn’t know, as far as I knew it was still in the stream. He looked at me and told me that was the information he needed.

He turned to my right and started speaking in Maori. When he had finished, he explained that I had picked up the spirit guardian that was protecting that carving. Because I’d stepped on or over it first, I was held responsible for disturbing it.

Consequently, I had essentially been cursed with a wasting curse.

I  explained that we had left the carving where it lay, and that was enough information to settle the spirit and lift the curse.

The Tohunga gave me a drink of blessed water and then manipulated my back and neck to try to free it up. He said in a minute or two, I’d start to feel tired. The energy I had left was all I had left in me before I died.

He also said my aura had started to shine because before it was very dull. Within minutes I could hardly keep my eyes open and couldn’t stop yawning. The Tohunga then asked me if I’d had a vivid dream about any of this. I thought he meant since I’d gotten back from the hunt and I couldn’t recall anything so I told him no.

But since then, I have been reminded of a dream I had before we went on our hunt. I can’t remember what was in the dream exactly, but it was so vivid and unnerving that it nearly made me not go on the hunt at all. After I told Marty he said something along the lines of not to be so silly and pack my gear. After thinking about it, I know this dream was a warning. It’s the way the other side communicates with us if they have important messages for us.

When I arrived home the next morning, my parents could see the change in my eyes. They said they were brighter and I didn’t look as lifeless. I went to sleep straight away.

While I was sleeping, my mother found the sparrow that had been staying in the house dead on the bench. I later found out that it was either the sparrow that was going to die or me.

I later found out that it was either the sparrow that was going to die or me. – Johnny Frahm

I started to eat again and put the weight I’d lost back on and within a few weeks was as fit as I ever was. To me, this was just another sign of what the Makutu had over me.

Over the next few years, I noticed strange things starting to happen. I was getting night or sleep paralysis. I was getting spirits coming to me and being around me. It started slowly at first, but then it was happening nearly every night.

They would come to me, and I’d know they were there. We didn’t communicate by verbally speaking but I got to feel what they were feeling and could sense their attitude and moods. Whether they were friendly or whether they didn’t want me to be there. Some I remember vividly like the little girl and her mother. The girl was friendly, but the mother wasn’t. There were ones that followed me back to camp in the bush​. They’d stay in the hut with me even sitting on my bed with me, another one in my room at home that felt very evil.

It was either the sparrow that was going to die or me.

It got too much for me, and I went to another Tohonga to see if he could help me. He told me because of what I’d been through with the wasting curse, it had opened me up to the other side. This had made me like a shining light in the dark for spirits to gravitate towards.

The Tohunga gave me ways of dealing with them when they came and also asked for it to stop happening to me. I found that they would leave now if I asked them to and slowly they stopped coming altogether.

This whole experience has made me a little bit more spiritual, and I find myself greeting and farewelling the ones on the other side whenever I go into the bush. I do this to thank them for watching over us and to make sure they stay where they live and don’t follow me back to my home.

Relevant: Bizarre and Haunting Reincarnation Stories Of Children

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Johnny Frahm

Johnny Frahm currently lives with his family on a very diverse little farm near Kawerau New Zealand. Growing up on a farm he’s lived an outdoor life developing a love for hunting and fishing and gets into the bush or out onto the ocean as often as he can.