Cursed girl's eyes gouged out

A 14-YEAR-OLD New Zealand girl has had her eyeballs gouged by relatives who thought she was possessed by the devil.

The girl was the cousin of Janet Moses, a 22-year-old mother of two who died on October 12 during the same ceremony to lift a Maori makutu (curse), the Dominion Post newspaper reported today.

Relatives gouged her eyes because they believed they saw the devil in them, and poured water down her throat.

They finally took the teenager who was close to death to the Hutt Hospital, near Wellington, where she needed emergency treatment to save her sight.

It was earlier reported that about 40 people were at the ceremony last month and the teenager was taken to hospital, but the full extent of her injuries was not known.

During the ceremony family members gazed into each others' eyes to judge whether they were cursed and treated anybody believed tainted, the paper said.

Moses also had her eyes gouged, and had grazes on her upper body, before she drowned in the bid to drive out the Maori curse relatives reportedly thought was brought after her sister stole a stone lion statue from a pub.

She was dead for about nine hours before police were called and a homicide investigation is ongoing, with police seeking help from Maori experts.

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