All Blacks and the haka
The All Blacks at the 2017 Rugby Championship in Sydney. Source: David Molloy / Flickr.
Haka and the All Blacks: they go together. Performing either Ka Mate or Kapa o Pango before a test match, their haka is a source of pride for us as New Zealanders and it gives me chills every time I see it performed, whether it’s on screen or in real life. It’s the highlight of any All Blacks game. But what do we really know about haka, and the history behind the haka that’s performed?
Haka is a traditional Māori dance. In Aotearoa New Zealand, it’s common knowledge that the haka was a war dance, performed by iwi. Its purpose is to invoke Tūmatauenga, the god of war, before going into battle.
However, haka is not just a war dance. It is performed to welcome people, performed at celebrations such as graduations and weddings, and in kapa haka to entertain, among other settings.
According to Robert Sullivan, the All Blacks perform haka to psych up the team and intimidate their opponents. The All Blacks website reads: “The haka adds a unique component, derived from the indigenous [Māori] of New Zealand, and which aligns with the wider Polynesian cultures of the Pacific.”
Ka Mate is New Zealand’s most famous haka, and it’s the haka we all think of when we think about the All Blacks.
The All Blacks during their haka in Paris, 1925. Source: L'Illustration / Wikimedia Commons.
Ka Mate is the intellectual property of Ngāti Toa. In 2011, Ngāti Toa signed an agreement with the New Zealand Rugby Union, where they agreed to allow the All Blacks to continue performing Ka Mate.
An oral history for Ka Mate has been published on the Ngāti Toa website; other oral histories of Ka Mate may vary.
According to the Ngāti Toa description, Ka Mate was composed by Ngāti Toa rangatira (chief) Te Rauparaha around 1820, when he and a group of Ngāti Toa were fleeing from a group of Ngāti Te Aho “who wanted revenge for a previous incident involving Ngāti Toa”.
Te Rauparaha was assisted by his relative Te Wharerangi, who “instructed [him] to climb into a kumara pit” as the war party approached. They were “guided by the incantations of their tohunga” (an expert practitioner of any skill).
Upon the arrival of Ngāti Te Aho, “Te Rauparaha could feel the power of the incantations.” Under his breath, he said to himself, “Ka mate! Ka mate!” (“will I die!”) and “Ka ora! Ka ora!” (“will I live!”)”
The Ngāti Toa account states that these words “were repeated many times coinciding with the waxing and waning of the tohunga’s power,” until the war party “were convinced… that Te Rauparaha had escaped towards Taranaki”.
Ka Mate was first introduced to the rugby world in 1888 by the first New Zealand representative team, the “Natives”. They used the haka during their 1888-89 tour of Britain, Ireland, Australia, and Aotearoa.
After it was used by the “Natives”, Ka Mate was performed by the All Blacks during a tour in 1905 and 1906. It was originally performed as “Te Rauparaha’s haka” and was not well known in New Zealand; during this time, the All Blacks would only perform the haka in other countries.
It is unknown why they did not perform the haka in Aotearoa, but due to limited test matches – around five per year – and the games not being broadcast live, a limited number of people saw the performance. It was yet not the iconic rugby staple we know today.
John Archer has reported that around the 1970s, things changed. With the introduction of satellite TV, the All Blacks games were being televised in Aotearoa and across the globe. Ka Mate slowly become a beloved part of the All Blacks games, with millions of fans watching the boys perform it.
The first All Blacks performance of the haka in Aotearoa wasn’t until 1986. In 1987, with the input of Hika Reid and Wayne Shelford, the performance of the haka was transformed into what know it as today.
Prior, the quality of the haka had been somewhat poor, the main reason being that the All Blacks’ performances had minimal Māori input. This meant the players lacked the cultural understanding needed to perform the haka with the mana it needs.
Stuff reporter Karanama Ruru wrote that during the All Blacks’ 1985 tour of Argentina, Shelford and Reid “decided enough was enough”. They trained the team on the cultural context and meaning of Ka Mate and how to perform it with mana.
Kapa o Pango, which took a year to create, was composed by Sir Derek Lardelli of Ngāti Porou. In a 2007 video produced by the All Blacks, Lardelli identified Kapa o Pango as a type of haka known as a “haka taparahi”.
“It’s ceremonial, it’s about building your spiritual, physical, and your intellectual capacity prior to doing something very important,” he said.
Kapa o Pango was written for the All Blacks to perform. The name roughly translates to “team in black”, referring directly to the All Blacks.
In a 2009 All Blacks video, then-captain Tana Umaga explained that they had a group of Māori speak to players about what the haka means to them. “We all left there with… a greater insight into the haka and how it really combined and brought as all together.”
Kapa o Pango was first performed in August 2005 before the Tri Nations test match against South Africa in Ōtepoti Dunedin. Although Ka Mate is still extremely popular and regularly performed, the team now perform both haka consistently.