The haka is indeed a dance of welcome, and not a challenge
LYON, FRANCE - OCTOBER 5: New Zealand players perform the haka ahead of the Rugby World Cup France 2023 match between New Zealand and Uruguay at Parc Olympique on October 5, 2023 in Lyon, France. (Photo by Craig Mercer/MB Media/Getty Images)
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 offered American citizenship at a time when racial discrimination was rife.
He tells us that the haka is a dance of welcome danced by a receiving tribe for important visitors.
It is a posture dance, requiring ferocity of facial expression heightened by glaring eyes and protruding tongues.
It is not a war dance and it is not a challenge.
