It is time to abolish the All Blacks’ haka
FThe deal implies it is now a bargaining chip at the poker table of trade
or fans of the hit TV quiz show Only Connect here is one for you: Sauvignon Blanc, Manuka honey, kiwifruit and the haka. You can have a few moments.
The connection, of course, is the recently announced free trade deal between the United Kingdom and New Zealand. All four have, in some way, been granted special status in the latest Johnson-ardern pact. If you got it right, congratulations, but just wait for the dreaded music question.
The haka, synonymous with the All Blacks, has always demanded higher ticket prices at rugby matches. Now its capitalist reach has extended even into trade deals. Treating it as a commodity to be bartered over like wine and honey might be deemed something of a slap in the face for the Ngati Toa tribe, who invented the Ka Mate version to celebrate their chief ’s escape from death in a battle in the 1820s.
But if, as this deal implies, the haka is now a bargaining chip at the poker table of trade, this raises a question for opposition rugby teams. Why should sides respect it any more than they respect other commercially valuable aspects of the New Zealand rugby team: the Adidas kit sponsors, for example?
Rugby’s link to the haka, after all, started in murky waters at the turn of the 20th century, developing through an infamously bad “performance” – if you can call it that – in 1973, to the commercial behemoth we know today.
The haka was first performed by the unofficial 1888 “Native” New Zealand tourists to the UK, a side made up predominantly of players of Maori origin. According to the revered sports historian Tony Collins, the 1867 Australian Aboriginal cricket tourists to England began the tradition of performing traditional war dances. It was fetishised as an exotic example of “native” culture.
Collins asserts that the Original All Blacks, the first “full” New Zealand team to tour outside of Australasia in 1905, probably used the haka because it was now expected from touring “colonial” teams. The “non-native” Wallabies and Springboks also performed war dances when in the UK during the same period.
Cultural adviser Karaitiana Taiuru opined on Wednesday that the haka’s inclusion in this trade deal should be seen as a positive for Maori culture; it is evidence, at least, of powerful figures taking their cultural customs seriously.
“Ka Mate is one of the most appropriated, commercially ripped-off icons of New Zealand and Te Ao Maori [the Maori world view] – it’s important and logical that it’s in [the deal],” he told The Guardian.
He then went on to deplore how “at events in London we see drunk Kiwis down the street doing the haka, just disrespecting Ngati Toa, Te Rauparaha [an Ngati Toa war leader] , the whole haka”. On that front, I bring sour news: Londonbased Kiwis indulging in too much of their own Sauvignon Blanc, among other delights, and then drunkenly blundering their way through the haka will not change because of a trade deal between the two countries. Ironically, because of the lower import tariffs, the wine will be cheaper, and they might even sink more of it. Something to look forward to, I guess.
Not the All Blacks, but rugby, as a whole, is just as guilty of piggybacking and commodifying the haka as the drunk New Zealanders on the streets of London. Is performing the haka before a rugby match, irrespective of the All Blacks’ immersion in Maori tradition, history and culture, really the best way to respect the haka and prevent its commercialisation?
The haka’s link to rugby is nebulous (at best) and is almost certainly borne out of imperialism and colonialism. The best way for rugby as a sport to buy into the sentiment expressed in the trade deal, to bestow as much respect as possible on the haka, would be to abolish it.