ebola virus & haka. Why is there no vaccine?

[menace]

Thank you Dickie, for confirming, that the gesture is NOT about throat-slitting nor about threatening the opponent, but is in fact about the players' personal performance.

I wasn't able to find this quote, although I knew that something like it existed, so I really appreciate you going the extra distance to find that for me.

Nonetheless, the Te Hauora gesture has been around for over 600 years


I am sure Mr Churchill was unaware how insulting his hand gesture would become a few years after he did this!!!

theres accidental gestures and then there's deliberate pre-game entertainment in show biz rugby to fire up the spectators ..... Let's not confuse the 2 for convenience of the argument.

I for one don't really care they do the throat slitting...a bit crass for mine...but let's just call it what it is and not dance around with excuses for it and what it could really mean. 99% of watchers will take it for what it looks like, plain and simple, and the creator for rugby games could reasonably have known how others would have perceived it and yet still decided to use it. As I said, it's great television and a great spectacle to generate interest in rugby...I can accept that (all my kids will watch the start of the rugby just to see the haka....and then they wander away after 10 mins of play). It's a great hook...so I'm happy for it to continue.

 

[Daftmedic]

Thank you Dickie, for confirming, that the gesture is NOT about throat-slitting nor about threatening the opponent, but is in fact about the players' personal performance.

I wasn't able to find this quote, although I knew that something like it existed, so I really appreciate you going the extra distance to find that for me.

Nonetheless, the Te Hauora gesture has been around for over 600 years


I am sure Mr Churchill was unaware how insulting his hand gesture would become a few years after he did this!!!

that was already an insulting gesture. He was mimicking the gesture used by English and Welsh Longbowmen to the French haraldic cavalry.

 

[crossref]

times change. In 1943, in a war, it was a gesture that a British politician could get away with. They couldn't now.

I have always been a fan of the haka, but I do find myself wondering if it is still appropriate in modern sport.

Part of the problem, I think, is the demand over recent years that the haka must be accorded some degree of respect. I don't think that has done the haka any favours at all. When it was simply a rugby tradition it was tolerable, teams could take it or leave it, they could ignore it or smile at it, and the haka had the attention it deserved, it was a sideshow, to be enjoyed or not, too your fancy.

I fear that demanding 'respect' for it has overblown its importance and elevated it to a position where it is rightly under scrutiny, and it can't be justified.

 

[Rushforth]

http://images.myshared.ru/441276/slide_17.jpg

 

[Daftmedic]

http://images.myshared.ru/441276/slide_17.jpg

Prosecution rests me Lord.

 

[didds]

( He was mimicking) the gesture used by English and Welsh Longbowmen to the French haraldic cavalry.

allegedly. but very likely not.

didds

 

[Browner]

Try as anyone might ( to deflect attention towards 1940's Churchill ... ) the fact remains that the 'traditional'
haka used by the NZAB was given the traditional upgrade!!!!

Compare this
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cnQEvhHDsuM

To this
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BI851yJUQQw

My modern preference is this
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I2EXDSr9Vro

Albeit some of the exaggerated face contortions make me chuckle.

Given that NZ are so adept at coming from behind, maybe the Haka initially drains them .. !?

 

[Browner]

that was already an insulting gesture. He was mimicking the gesture used by English and Welsh Longbowmen to the French haraldic cavalry.

Maybe it signified 'two' Wins ???!!!

Perhaps the haka response should be a 'Gareth Hunt' acknowledging a new found love of shaking coffee beans in our culture .... lol

 

[Crucial]

Like most things that stem from a 'culture', aspects are misunderstood or not understood at all by those without an inkling of the significances.
I certainly don't expect anyone from outside of NZ to understand kapa haka. I do think that it's good if some take a moment to learn and understand just as I like to educate myself when I don't understand something.
What I don't like is when uneducated assumptions or attitudes are applied. If you are going to deride someones culture then at least do it from a position of knowledge.
As for the proliferation of kiwis abroad breaking into haka at every opportunity, well that's the cringe that goes along with the good. That they do it shows that as a country we have made big strides in race relations and confronted our colonial past. It's simply the most visible way of displaying that part of our identity.
Pointing out the evolution of haka as used by the All Blacks backs up our own evolution of identity. Firstly it was something done poorly as a nod to being a little different and trying to establish our place in the world. Then, Buck Shelford, took the tradition and added back the actual meaning behind it. The back story and relevance was learned and eventually embraced. This, in turn, led to the ABs wanting to create a haka unique to them. Kapa o pongo includes actions from various cultures, not just Maori, reflecting the mix we embrace and relate to as a society.
Is there still a place for it in international rugby? Absolutely. It has become a tradition of the game in the same way as sharing a beer with the opposition after the game and 'three cheers for the ref'. Ian's suggestion of away games being 'on request' makes sense though.
As for demanding respect, where does that come from? The rules around how to behave are laid down by the IRB, not the ABs.
Some of you may be happy to still snigger and scoff at something you don't understand. I wouldn't dream of insisting that you must understand, but I have felt very proud in my country when, on a sunny winter's morning, the valley echos with the sound of two school 1st XVs performing their school haka at each other.

 

[Rushforth]

That they do it shows that as a country we have made big strides in race relations and confronted our colonial past.

Twelve hundred miles to the east of Australia lie the islands of New Zealand. Here, long before they were discovered by Europeans, a Polynesian warrior race, the Maoris, had sailed across the Pacific from the north-east and established a civilisation notable for the brilliance of its art and the strength of its military system.
...
Resistance to English colonisation was fortified by the arrival of Christian missionaries. In 1814 the Reverend Samuel Marsden set up a mission station in this same Bay of Islands. He was joined by other clerics, and Christianity quickly gained a large ascendancy over the Maoris, many of whom became proselytisers. The missionaries struggled to defeat the power of the traders, and for many years they opposed, in the interests of the Maoris, all schemes for admitting English immigrants. For a time they succeeded, and the Australian colonies had been established for half a century before the first official English settlement was founded.
...
Peace brought prosperity. Great flocks of sheep were reared on the famous Canterbury Plains of the South Island, and a native Corriedale cross-breed was evolved. In the eighteen-sixties gold was found in Otago and Canterbury and there was a temporary boom. The Australian gold discoveries and the swift rise in prices in Melbourne and Sydney gave agriculture a flying start. Despite a depression in the eighties, the prosperity of New Zealand has continued to grow ever since. The invention of the refrigerator enabled the colony to compete with European and English producers thirteen thousand miles away. The co-operative movement, especially in dairy-farming, helped small farmers with little capital to build up an industry of remarkable magnitude, and the Dominion of New Zealand soon possessed the highest external trade in proportion to its numbers of any nation in the world.
...
Many of the reforms introduced into Great Britain by the Liberal Government of 1906, and then regarded as extreme innovations, had already been accepted by New Zealand. Industrial arbitration, old-age pensions, factory legislation, State insurance and medical service, housing Acts, all achieved between 1890 and the outbreak of the First World War, and State support for co-operative production, testified to the survival and fertility, even in the remote and unfamiliar islands of the Pacific, of the British political genius.

Guess which liberal Nobel Prize winner wrote that?

 

[SimonSmith]

Without Googling - Churchill, A History of the English speaking people

 

[Rushforth]

Without Googling - Churchill, A History of the English speaking people

There IS a Santa Claus!

 

[crossref]

As for demanding respect, where does that come from? The rules around how to behave are laid down by the IRB, not the ABs.
.

I agree that the IRB are at fault, their rules do accord undue respect to the haka. But it's not only the IRB, it is also many New Zealanders who think that dancing rugby players should be accorded due respect.

 

[Ian_Cook]

I agree that the IRB are at fault, their rules do accord undue respect to the haka. But it's not only the IRB, it is also many New Zealanders who think that dancing rugby players should be accorded due respect.

You are so out of touch with reality!

This is simply because you are parroting whatever your media spoon-feeds you, so please don't try to tell Kiwis what they think when you are clearly ignorant on the subject. By doing so, you help perpetuate the lies.

In fact the vast majority of Kiwis think nothing of the sort. Even Maori elders themselves say that how you respond to Haka is your own personal choice. Despite the lies your media feeds you, there is in fact no "requirement" to show respect, and there is no such thing as "disrespecting Haka". If you choose to respond by turning around, dropping your pants and showing your bare buttocks, you are free to do so, at least from a Maori perspective (although the local authorities might have an issue with it).

The gin-swilling suits in Dublin are wholly and exclusively responsible for making a complete hash of things by meddling in stuff they do not understand.

 

[crossref]

Ian that's refreshing to hear.

 

[Browner]

So, anyone who criticises in any way ...... Is quickly smeared & labelled a 'culturally ignoramus'. (paraphrased not quoted) , yet if the response to the haka was a fully waving 'two fingered salute' then all the culturally clued up kiwis performing it or watching it would happily align with the maori elders cultural acceptance ?

Yep, of course they would, why might i possibly think anyone might respond otherwise ?! ?!?!

Perhaps its time for this cultural 'tradition' to be removed from international rugby, & while I'm in the mood for international diplomacy, let's insist Ireland has one rousing Anthem per match ! .... lol

 

[crossref]

I'm in the mood for international diplomacy, let's insist Ireland has one rousing Anthem per match ! .... lol

please could we also insist that England has a rousing anthem?

 

[Browner]

please could we also insist that England has a rousing anthem?

What about ...... Tom Harks flutes

De duh de duh duh

De duh de duh duh

De duh de duh duh

De duh de duh duh

.....Coupled with some skyward aimed arm pumping

Always rouses most up outta their seat at the 7s

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zKz5kpqctV0

 

[Rushforth]

please could we also insist that England has a rousing anthem?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8MWb1FlODQ&t=179

 

[Ian_Cook]

So, anyone who criticises in any way ...... Is quickly smeared & labelled a 'culturally ignoramus'. (paraphrased not quoted) , yet if the response to the haka was a fully waving 'two fingered salute' then all the culturally clued up kiwis performing it or watching it would happily align with the maori elders cultural acceptance ?l

Naturally there will be some who are not happy. Those who would complain about a response such as that are the cultural ignoramuses and they would be in a minority, a small minority.

Our club grounds are on Maori land, so we have regular dealings with Kaumātua and I have personally spoken to various elders regarding Haka when the subject has come up. They all say the same thing; there is no correct or preferred way to respond to Haka. How you respond should be in line with your taha wairua (spiritual wellbeing/personal beliefs)

If this is too difficult for you to understand then there is not much point in my continuing to try to educate you.