In Praise of the Haka

One night, while watching the evening news, I witnessed a remarkable sight. In Euless, Texas, before a game, the Trinity High School Trojans football team was performing a haka, an ancient Maori ritual dance used to proclaim strength before battle. The dance was brought to Euless by Tongan immigrants who settled in the area. The team stomped their feet, slapped themselves on the sides thighs and chest, made fierce expressions and yelled boisterously, "Ka Mate! Ka Mate! Ka Ora!" (We're going to die! We're going to die! We're going to live!). An ancient Maori battle, when a chieftain was saved by a legendary hairy man, was briefly re-enacted. The crowd roared its approval, and the Trojans, having aroused their warrior spirits, were ready for battle.


This haka is called a ‘peruperu’, used to call the god of war and frighten the enemy. The Maori warriors would perform the dance naked, except for the flax belts they would wear. A haka had to be performed in unison, or the war god would be angry with the tribe. The tribe would then commence fighting, intending to kill all members of the enemy tribe, in order to prevent revenge.


The haka was adopted by several rugby clubs in New Zealand and is associated with New Zealand’s famous All Blacks rugby team, who have performed hakas before matches for over 100 years. Their chant is:
"We are the All Blacks, of the New Zealand people."
"We stand on this field arrayed for battle."
"At our backs we feel the might of tradition wrought by those who have gone before."
"Over our hearts we bear the Silver Fern, emblem of Mana to die for."
"This challenge is now thrown out to you. Take it if you dare for we will not withhold ourselves this day and the faint of heart will surely be lost."


But, the haka is not exclusively a war dance, and not all hakas are performed exclusively by men; they are also performed by women and children. Hakas are also performed to greet guests and celebrate great achievements or occasions. The haka was described by New Zealander Alan Armstrong as, “A composition played by many instruments. Hands, feet, legs, body, voice, tongue, and eyes all play their part in blending together to convey in their fullness the challenge, welcome, exultation, defiance or contempt of the words. It is disciplined, yet emotional. More than any other aspect of Maori culture, this complex dance is an expression of the passion, vigour and identity of the race. It is at its best, truly, a message of the soul expressed by words and posture".


The Trojans would emerge from battle, bloodied and battered, but happy and victorious. I cannot help but contrast the courage and fierce commitment of these young men with the banality of daily life, spent at a job or in front of a television, accumulating material wealth but living without passion or excitement. I am pleased to see the haka come to America. In these times, a little warrior spirit may be good.

Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself

I’m not a man of wealth or taste. I enjoy simple things. Give me a beautiful song, Tilden Park in the springtime, an evening with a lovely lady, a friendly dog or the company of good friends, and I’m happy.

I come from a hardscrabble neighborhood in East Oakland, known to the police as Ground Zero. With all the poverty and crime, the culture is very macho. People went to great lengths to avoid looking poor. For example, during my teen years, the pimp look was in, so guys spent large sums of money on lime green silk socks, purple velvet pants, alligator shoes, fur hats and jewelry that sells by the pound. Few actually were pimps, since they usually got around on the bus. The real pimps drove Cadillacs with gold plating and wire wheels.

I remember one guy in particular. He couldn’t afford to look like a pimp, but seemingly wanted to appear important anyway. I was at a bus stop, in front of a motorcycle shop, on my way to school. He had a proposition for me. Would I help him break into the motorcycle shop and steal some motorcycles? I suggested this was a poor idea, since neither of us knew how to hotwire a motorcycle, we didn’t know if there was gas in any of them and we had no place to keep them after a day of joyriding. But he wasn’t deterred. He circled the building what must have been about ten times, looking for a way in. He finally seemed to agree with me at about the same time the owner showed up. He ran off, and I never saw him again.

I grew up with my mother and my sister, living in a small apartment. We didn’t have a car or much money. My mother had to work long hours to make ends meet, and we had few luxuries. I usually wore hand-me-downs, so if I wanted didn’t want to look poor, which is bad form, I had to get a job.

My first job was a paper route with about 40 customers. I would deliver newspapers after school and collect for my services at the end of the month. I had to pay for the newspapers, and the remaining cash was my profit. The problem was some people didn’t want to pay me. They had plenty of excuses, such as “I didn’t get the paper” or “I cancelled my service”. If excuses were money, I could have retired by age sixteen. Maybe after buying all those alligator shoes and fur hats, people were short on cash. One night, while making collections, somebody tried to rob me, poking his finger at me under his jacket. We got into a fist fight, somebody turned some lights and he ran away.

While I was still young, I took a variety of jobs, from Fuller Brush salesman to sheepherder. Sheepherding was a smelly, boring job, but the upside was, at least, I got paid. Then I had an epiphany; I could make more money computer programming. So, I went to school, and later worked at a software company. The future was bright, until my job, along with about 100,000 others, was outsourced to India. My next epiphany bought me here to Lincoln University to learn ultrasound.

Growing up in a tough neighborhood can be beneficial later in life. The experience made me more self-reliant, hard-working and ambitious. I learned that it is important to see the bigger picture, to value friends with good character, that trust is the foundation of relationships, that you should embrace your uniqueness and that alligator shoes are hard to keep clean. But most importantly, I learned that misery is no virtue, and happiness is no vice.