Bitterns are very good at watching and listening while remaining hidden in the swamps, and thus they made good spies. This was an incantation chanted in deceit by Turi at his pa at Patea. The reason Turi said a bittern was guarding his territories was that if any group who was plotting to kill Turi heard a bittern flapping its wings, they would think the bittern was informing Turi about them, and they would not act.

Turi may have been playing on the similarity between the names matuku and mākutu to suggest that there was an element of witchcraft present in the activity of the bitterns.

This incantation is a reminder that many Polynesians had settled in Taranaki before Turi's group arrived at Patea in the Aotea. According to Sir Peter Buck (1949) the voyaging canoe Ariki-maitai had already made landfall at Patea, the Kahu-tara, Tai-koria and Okoki had all made landfall in north Taranaki, and the Motumotu-ahi, Panga-toru, Whaka-ringaringa, Ringau-mutu and Tairea had landed at Whanganui.