Wira Gardiner

Wira Gardiner is author of the book Haka - A Living Tradition. He has been a soldier, a senior public servant and is now a businessman. He has tribal affiliations to Te Arawa, Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Pikiao, Whakatōhea and Te Whanau-a-Apanui.

Q. What are your earliest recollections of performing the haka?

A. As a young person I used to perform traditional haka of the Te Arawa tribe at a place called Hinehopu on the edge of Lake Rotoiti. Tourists would come across the lake from Rotorua, and when they arrived we’d give them a little concert party. The Te Arawa people have been performing for visitors since the late 1800s - in fact, we pioneered performances for tourists. I can remember performing the haka Ka Mate!, as well as other traditional haka.

Q. How was the haka taught to children back then?

A. We hung around the performers and copied their moves until we were adept enough to be added to the back line. You started moving forward as you got older and better. Back then, you could learn by example. These days formal tuition is the way, because people don’t have as much contact with tribal traditions.

Q. Is haka experiencing a resurgence?

A. As a result of Kohanga Reo (Maori language nests), many of our young people now know the action songs, waiatas and haka that escaped middle-aged Maori. It’s ironic that if you went to a marae today and started a haka like Ka Mate!, young people and old people would join you - but people in their 40s and 50s probably wouldn’t, because they had less contact with Maori traditions while they were growing up. As a young man I was at university in London. One lunchtime I heard this awful racket coming out of restaurant "Timaru, Oamaru, Eketahuna…" and looked in to see all these pakehas (Europeans) doing their version of the Ka Mate! haka. They didn’t know the lyrics so they were shouting out all the Maori place names they could think of. Fast forward to a sporting match in the present day and you’ll see New Zealanders of every hue getting up and doing a well pronounced, well synchronized haka - I think it’s very positive.

Q. We don’t see women performing haka…why?

A. It seems to me that Christianity was responsible for diminishing the role of women in haka. When the European explorers arrived, they noted that haka were performed by both men and women, with women being just as fierce in the actions as men. From the moment the missionaries arrived in the 1800s right up to recent times, the female role in haka has diminished. I believe the role of women in haka will gradually be reinstated, so that the full range of expression and participation can take place.

Q. Who creates new haka?

A. Anybody can compose a haka, but then you have to persuade someone to do it - that’s the test of whether your haka will be accepted. These days, haka are composed to reflect contemporary issues - child abuse, political issues, September 11th… To gain acceptance, a haka has to be relevant and it has to look good.

Q. Do other Pacific cultures perform haka?

A. As with language, the core components of the haka are reflected in other Polynesian cultures. Our ancestors brought haka from Hawaaiki Nui and Polynesia, and over several centuries of internal development in New Zealand it has evolved to what we see today. Likewise other Pacific cultures have evolved their own form of haka - the Samoans use weapons, Tahitians are more gentle and the Rarotongans have forms of dance chant that are just as vigorous as ours.