Black magic??

The Herald reports:

The Kīngitanga has defended the public shaming by Māori King Tūheitia Potatau Te Wherowhero VII of his eldest son Whatumoana and his marriage to Rangimarie Tahana that featured a whānau walk out mid-ceremony and a bride-in-brawl at the reception.

Sources told the NZ Herald that the statement from the King’s office on June 25, 2022, of the disapproval of the marriage to Tahana, was an accumulation of 18 months of deep frustration and hurt, an attempted coup of the Kīngitanga by Whatumoana, mounting debts around the motu, and his dabbling in aspects of black magic.

There is of course no such thing as black magic. I am surprised the media would report it as a real thing.

The statue of the tribal God is on display at the Te Awamutu Museum. It is written that Tainui brought Uenuku’s spirit over from Hawaiki inside of a stone and then transferred it into the carving of Te Uenuku. Tainui used to invoke his spirit to temporarily inhabit smaller idols during times of war.

Spirits don’t inhabit idols.

It would be ok to report “Tainui used to invoke his spirit in the belief it would inhabit smaller idols” but they seem to treat this as a fact.