Overview Haka is a form of indigenous dance that encompasses multiple ceremonial purposes in Māori culture. As Nathan Matthew explains, "it is a posture dance accompanied by chanted or shouted song... One of the main characteristics of haka are that actions involving all parts of the body are used to emphasise the words."
Origins in Māori tradition According to Māori tradition, haka originated from a creation story. The sun god,
Tama-nui-te-rā, had two wives, the Summer Maid,
Hine-raumati, and the Winter Maid,
Hine-takurua. Haka originated in the coming of Hine-raumati, whose presence on still, hot days was revealed in a quivering appearance in the air. This was haka of
Tāne-rore, the son of Hine-raumati and Tama-nui-te-rā. Hyland comments that "the haka is (and also represents) a natural phenomena ; on hot summer days, the 'shimmering' atmospheric distortion of air emanating from the ground is personified as 'Te Haka a Tānerore'".
Types and functions Haka includes various forms serving different ceremonial purposes. These functions include: • welcoming guests (), • fare-welling and mourning the deceased (), • giving advice or instructions (), • restoring self-respect (), • intimidating adversaries ( – war dance), • and transmitting social and political messages (). The is a war haka that uses weapons, while is performed without weapons and is the more common ceremonial form. Other forms include: • (similar to but with sideways jumping), • (like with no jumping), • (like with no set actions, usually ceremonial and connected with death), and • (hatred or venting haka).
Performance elements Various actions are employed in haka performance, including
facial contortions such as showing the whites of the eyes (), and poking out the tongue (, performed by men only), 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."
Modern haka at
Ruatoki, Bay of Plenty, 1904 In modern times, various haka have been composed to be performed by women and even children. In some haka the men start the performance and women join in later. Haka are performed for various reasons: for welcoming distinguished guests, or to acknowledge great achievements, occasions or funerals. 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 internationally. haka in Egypt, 1941|alt=A squad of men kneel in the desert sand while performing a war dance 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 (, 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 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", 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.
Spread to other Austronesian nation-states The
Malay College Kuala Kangsar, a historically all-boys all-
Malay prestige boarding school in
Malaysia adopted the haka for their own rugby team in admiration of the New Zealand All-Blacks' popularity in the 1970s under the tutelarship of Neil Jonathan Ryan. In return, said college's cheer team developed their own cry in a similar spirit, known as the
bungwak. Neighbouring
Singapore's
Rugby Union in 2004 took on an attempt of collaborating with students all over the island to create a "Singapore Roar" inspired by the haka, even though the majority of
its demographic is
Chinese. In
Indonesia, a culture of doing the 'haka-haka', or its more commonly known variation, 'yel-yel', exists. The dance is performed by groups such as
military personnel,
law enforcement, civil servants, students, and others. == Cultural influence ==