Product Code Database
Haka (, ; singular haka, in both Māori and New Zealand English) are a variety of Folk dance in Māori culture. A performance art, hakas are often performed by a group, with vigorous movements and stamping of the feet with rhythmically shouted accompaniment. Haka have been traditionally performed by both men and women for a variety of social functions within Māori culture. They are performed to welcome distinguished guests, or to acknowledge great achievements, occasions, or funerals.
Kapa haka groups are common in schools. The main Māori performing arts competition, Te Matatini, takes place every two years. New Zealand sports teams' practice of performing a haka to challenge opponents before international matches has made the dance form more widely known around the world. This tradition began with the 1888–89 New Zealand Native football team tour and has been carried on by the New Zealand rugby union team (known as the All Blacks) since 1905. Although popularly associated with the traditional battle preparations of male , conceptions that haka are typically , are considered erroneous by Māori scholars, alongside the inaccurate performance of haka by non-Māori.
The peruperu is a war haka that uses weapons, while haka taparahi is performed without weapons and is the more common ceremonial form. Other forms include:
From their arrival in the early 19th century, Christian missionaries tried to eradicate haka, along with other forms of Māori culture that they saw as conflicting with Christian beliefs and practice. Henry Williams, the leader of the Church Missionary Society mission in New Zealand, aimed to replace haka and traditional Māori chants (waiata) with . Missionaries also encouraged European harmonic singing as part of the process of conversion.
The use of haka in welcoming ceremonies for members of British royal family helped to improve its standing among Europeans. Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh, was the first royal to visit New Zealand, in 1869. Upon the Duke's arrival at the wharf in Wellington, he was greeted by a vigorous haka. The Wellington Independent reported, "The excitement of the becomes uncontrollable. They gesticulate, they dance, they throw their weapons wildly in the air, while they yell like fiends let loose. But all this fierce yelling is of the most friendly character. They are bidding the Duke welcome." 13 April 1869, Wellington Independent, p. 3. Retrieved on 25 June 2018.
The 1888–89 New Zealand Native football team began a tradition by performing haka during an international tour. The common use of haka by the national rugby union team before matches, beginning with The Original All Blacks in 1905, has made one type of haka familiar.
Some events have caused protests. The 1979 annual "haka party" parade at the University of Auckland – in which engineering students persisted in parodying haka by painting male genitals on their body and performing with sexually obscene gestures – was disrupted by a collection of Māori and Pacific Island students (He Taua, or The War Party) headed by Ngā Tamatoa, a prominent Māori activist group. For two decades people including Māori students at the university had asked the university and the engineering department to stop the tradition. In 1979, the protesters included Hone Harawira, later a Member of Parliament. Several of the engineering students were assaulted, and members of He Taua were arrested. Their court case in Auckland sparked anti-racism protests outside the courthouse and was supported by a range of people including the president of the Auckland University Students Association.
The choreographed dance and chant popularized around the world by the All Blacks derives from "Ka Mate", a brief haka previously intended for extemporaneous, non-synchronized performance, the composition of which is attributed to Te Rauparaha (1760s–1849), a war leader of the Ngāti Toa tribe. The "Ka Mate" haka is classified as a haka taparahi – a ceremonial haka performed without weapons. "Ka Mate" is about the cunning ruse Te Rauparaha used to outwit his enemies, and may be interpreted as "a celebration of the triumph of life over death". Concerns were expressed that the authorship and significance of this haka to the Ngāti Toa were being lost and that it had "become the most performed, the most maligned, the most abused of all haka", and was now "the most globally recognised form of cultural appropriation". Specific legal challenges regarding the rights of the Ngāti Toa to be acknowledged as the authors and owners of "Ka Mate" were eventually settled in a Deed of Settlement between Ngāti Toa and the New Zealand Government and New Zealand Rugby Union agreed in 2009 and signed in 2012.
In Indonesia, a culture of doing the 'haka-haka' or its more commonly known variation 'yel-yel' exist and performed by groups such as military personnel, law enforcement, civil servants, students, and others.
In addition to the national Te Matatini ("many faces") festival, local and regional competitions attract dozens of teams and thousands of spectators.
The All Blacks' use of haka has become the most widely known, but several other New Zealand sports teams now perform haka before commencing a game. These include the national rugby league team ("the Kiwis"), and the men's national basketball team ("Tall Blacks"). In the lead up to the Rugby World Cup in 2011, flashmob haka became a popular way of expressing support for the All Blacks. Some Māori leaders thought it was "inappropriate" and a "bastardisation" of haka. Sizeable flashmob haka were performed in Wellington and Auckland, as well as London, which has a large New Zealander immigrant community.
The music video for the song "Poi E" (1983) by the Pātea Māori Club, written by Dalvanius Prime and Ngoi Pēwhairangi, used a mixture of kapa haka and hip-hop choreography. This was then mixed with moves from Michael Jackson's Thriller music video as the outro song parody for Taika Waititi movie Boy (2010) .
In November 2012, a Māori kapa haka group from Rotorua performed a version of the "Gangnam Style" dance mixed with a traditional haka in Seoul, celebrating 50 years of diplomatic relations between South Korea and New Zealand.
On 7 December 2014, at the 2014 Roller Derby World Cup in Dallas, Texas, Team New Zealand performed a haka on roller skates to the Australian Roller Derby team before their bout in the quarter-finals. Team New Zealand performed a haka before their debut game against Team USA at the 2011 Roller Derby World Cup, on 1 December 2011; however, it was unexpected and the arena music was still playing. It has since become an expected tradition.
In 2017, actor Dwayne Johnson performed a haka with a girls soccer team in The Fate of the Furious.
Actor Jason Momoa performed a haka with a group of performers on the red carpet at the Aquaman premiere in Los Angeles in 2018.
In March 2019, following the Christchurch mosque shootings, school pupils and other groups performed haka to honour those killed in the attacks.
The choreography in the "" music video by South Korean boy band Stray Kids featured haka elements.
Three or four American football teams are known to perform haka as a pregame rite. This appears to have begun at Kahuku High School where both the student body and local community includes many Polynesian Hawaiians, Māori, Samoans, Tahitians, and Tongans. The University of Hawaii Rainbow Warriors football team also adopted haka as a pregame rite during the 2006 season, and the practice has spread to a number of other teams overseas; there has, however, been some criticism of this as inappropriate and disrespectful. Non-traditional or inaccurate haka performances have been criticised by Māori academics, such as Morgan Godfery.
In September 2024, thousands gathered in Eden Park in Auckland to break the record of the largest haka performance. France held the previous official world record since 2014.
On 14 November 2024, MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke led a haka inside the New Zealand Parliament to protest the Treaty Principles Bill, joined by Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, Rawiri Waititi, and other MPs. Debate was temporarily paused and the house voted to suspend Maipi-Clarke.
|
|
