Witchcraft

==== Cook Islands ====
In pre-Christian times, witchcraft was a common practice in the [[Cook Islands]]. The native name for a sorcerer was {{Lang|rar|tangata purepure}} (a man who prays).<ref name=Buse>{{Cite book |last=Jasper Buse |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AT2ENAHoS28C&pg=PA372 |title=Cook Islands Maori Dictionary |date=1995 |publisher=Cook Islands Ministry of Education |isbn=978-0728602304 |access-date=2016-02-27 |archive-date=2016-08-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160808111050/https://books.google.com/books?id=AT2ENAHoS28C&pg=PA372 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{rp|372}} The prayers offered by the {{Lang|rar|ta'unga}} (priests){{r|Buse|p=471}} to the gods worshiped on national or tribal ''[[marae]]'' (temples) were termed {{Lang|rar|karakia}};{{r|Buse|p=156}} those on minor occasions to the lesser gods were named {{Lang|rar|pure}}. All these prayers were metrical, and were handed down from generation to generation with the utmost care. There were prayers for every such phase in life; for success in battle; for a change in wind (to overwhelm an adversary at sea, or that an intended voyage be propitious); that his crops may grow; to curse a thief; or wish ill-luck and death to his foes. Few men of middle age were without a number of these prayers or charms. The succession of a sorcerer was from father to son, or from uncle to nephew. So too of sorceresses: it would be from mother to daughter, or from aunt to niece. Sorcerers and sorceresses were often slain by relatives of their supposed victims.<ref name=WWG>{{Cite book |last=William Wyatt Gill |title=The south Pacific and New Guinea, past and present; with notes on the Hervey group, an illustrative song and various myths |date=1892 |publisher=Sydney: Charles Potter, Government Printer |chapter=Wizards |author-link=William Wyatt Gill |chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/southpacificnewg00gill#page/20/mode/2up}}</ref>{{rp|page=21}}

A singular enchantment was employed to kill off a husband of a pretty woman desired by someone else. The expanded flower of a [[Gardenia taitensis|Gardenia]] was stuck upright—a very difficult performance—in a cup (i.e., half a large coconut shell) of water. A prayer was then offered for the husband's speedy death, the sorcerer earnestly watching the flower. Should it fall the incantation was successful. But if the flower still remained upright, he will live. The sorcerer would in that case try his skill another day, with perhaps better success.{{r|WWG|p=22}}