Brendan Gallagher is correct in saying that the haka is not a challenge.
If this were really the case, why would the haka invariably be danced in New Zealand for visiting royalty and dignitaries? Are they all being challenged too?
The truth can be found in a monumental work, The Coming of the Maori, written in 1949 by Te Rangi Hiroa, otherwise known as Sir Peter Buck.
Born to a Maori mother and an Irish rabbiter, who worked on Ica Station outside Masterton, Te Rangi
Hiroa rose to become Director of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu and Professor of Anthropology at Yale.
Remarkably, he was o...