Tūmatauenga pathworking - The Māori god of war, death, & cannibalism

[Veil]

In early 2021 I was part of a group working – where every member of the group would pick a goal or target, and on their assigned day, the rest of the group would collectively cast rituals or perform other workings for that person’s goal.

This is how I discovered Tūmatauenga.

(Skip to the end of the post for the actual pathworking steps.)

NOTE: I do NOT recommend Tūmatauenga for beginners.

And I strongly recommend you take a trusted guide (patron, protection servitor, etc.) with you, and cleanse/banish your space afterwards.

If you don’t personally have a close/trusted guide, take someone neutral such as Raziel, Luficer, or Hermes.

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So.

One member’s request was for a baneful working, and I was wavering on which entity I would petition for help. Before the ritual, I was working on making a clay poppet to represent the target and create a sympathetic link.

Click to view poppets.

…While I made the poppet, I was listening to my angry metal playlist so I could channel some rage and hatred into the doll. I started thinking about which entities I would like to work with for this ritual. Immediately the next song comes on – Kai Tangata, about the Māori god of war, Tūmatauenga. It felt like he was making his presence known. Decided I’d give it some thought over the next few hours and if I still strongly felt like Tūmatauenga was [offering his services], I’d call on him and ask for his help to make fucking war on [the target’s] life.

The Māori were known to practice cannibalism on their enemies in times of war… and the name of the song itself means “Eat people” or “man-eater”.

As the rest of the group went on talking, the topic of discussion was an appropriate punishment for someone who had committed the kind of disgusting crimes that the target had done. Castration was brought up, and it was actually @norse900 who made a joke asking if anyone know of a cannibal who might assist.

That was the go-ahead I was looking for. I do love a nice synchronicity handed to me on a platter.

Click to view notes on initial ritual.

For the working itself, i first banished, cast a circle, and connected to Tūmatauenga. i think i have something of a pathworking to him if anyone is interested. i used this series of visions to summon him and let him oversee.

i connected the poppet to the target by gazing through its head at the image of the target until the connection was unmistakable. i wrote a petition with his name, that he will suffer tenfold the pain he caused his victims.

first i ground a lit cigarette out on his body. then i bound his genitals in nine knots of black thread, then bound his crown chakra in the same black thread. i inserted pins into his body. two for the genitals, the crown chakra, the throat chakra, the heart chakra. then i burned the petition to Tūmatauenga and additionally asked for war to be waged in every aspect of his life. from the petition candle i poured black wax over his body.

then i wrapped the doll in paper and bound it with seven knots. it makes me ill to look at. “Anei nga tohu a Tūmatauenga” – these are the omens of war . i’ll dispose of it soon, either in running water or burying it at the local graveyard.

Testing phase

While I’d used nothing more than the aforementioned song and the god’s name to connect to him for the ritual, I did end up coming away from the ritual with a pathworking to Tūmatauenga.

A few nights later I tried it again. Here are my notes:

I kind of fucked up by forgetting to take a guide with me. So at the beginning it was fine, we had some stream-of-consciousness back-and-forth exchange. I asked if I could share the pathworking publicly. He seemed reasonably OK with its use to connect to him, but then a giant fucking horde of spirits showed up. Like Māori warrior spirits. All standing in ever-widening concentric circles around me and Tūmatauenga. That was a bit fucked.

They didn’t like that I was not “of the earth”, or something like that. I saw gnarled brown roots twining up from ground, inside Tū’s legs. Felt like I was being disapproved of by his attending spirits for not having the same. I didn’t quite know what to make of it, because, well, I’m not not of the earth, being from the material plane. I thought he might have meant something like I’m too much in the current of elemental Air.

Nothing bad happened, I wasn’t attacked, but my “shield” was tested, and I had a few friendly spirits (ones I have an established relationship with) kind of each take turns fading in for a second to check on me and then leaving immediately (like “glad you’re ok, but you’re on your own here, dumbass”.) The hostile spirits determined the shield was not penetrable, and I felt this gained their respect (or at least lessened their hostility) somewhat. I bid farewell to Tūmatauenga and then I let the connection fade.

I sent the pathworking to @norse900 and @ReyCuervo separately, asking them each to try it and verify.

@ReyCuervo

He danced a little around us and at first showed to be very aggressive, to the point he may have attacked me. Interestingly enough, he did kneel when he saw Hermes, who was my guardian for this journey. Looked more like respect than submission. Hermes insisted that he should stand.

One thing: Hermes was next to neutral during most of the meeting, which is very weird; he is always very childish…

…[Tūmatauenga] said he is associated with death, that’s his office… and that he isn’t going to kill for me. At this point, Hermes kind of grrrrrrr, so Tumatauenga accepted to work with me. I won’t, since it is clear he really doesn’t like people like me going there and asking stuff from him. By people like me I don’t know if I mean latinos, white, people from outside Oceania or what, but it is clear he has a type, so to speak, and he wants THEM to seek him out.

So, both Cuervo and I had the experience of general hostility or disapproval towards “outsiders”. Which makes me think that maybe a better interpretation of “not of the earth” is “not of the land”. I interpret this to mean that any pathworking for spiritual development with Tūmatauenga is off-limits to anyone not of Māori heritage (or maybe anyone not of general Polynesian descent, but I can’t say for certain).

@norse900

The chief took a wide stance and stuck his tongue out as the Polynesians do to intimidate their rivals. I returned the gesture. He started doing a haka, but noticed I wasn’t imitating him. I had no “right” to the dance and he appreciated this. Then he motioned that I should pick up the spear.

I did so and he started attacking. This happened for a few minutes, but I wasn’t striking him, merely parrying. He abruptly stopped and his warriors started in. I vaporized them one-by-one and when they stopped attacking me, I reconstituted them as an act of good faith. This was appreciated and the attacks/tests stopped. I set the spear back down and the chief did the same.

After this I wrote,

@Veil

It’s on my list to do the pathworking again, obviously with a guide this time, and see if I can make peace with the tangata whenua horde – I have some ties to Aotearoa even if I am not Māori. Tangata whenua meaning people of the land , and among other things can be used to refer to the Māori people as a whole. So this connects even more dots for me given my initial interaction with Tū and being disdainfully recognised as “not of the earth land”.

Still not over the surreal experience of “learning” something from a spirit that’s later verified by other sources.

The pathworking

This is the pathworking you can use to connect to Tūmatauenga.

• A single footprint in the mud
• Blood stains the bark of a tree
• The sun sets over a battlefield
• A bonfire crackles nearby
• A sacred spear is laid upon the ground.

Call Tūmatauenga’s name 3 times. (TOO-mah-tah’wu-en-GAH).

Again, I do not recommend this spirit for beginners, and please take a guide with you.

Most of this content was originally posted here, and collated into this single post.