[Sca-cooks] Sca-cooks Digest, Vol 17, Issue 56
Martha Oser
osermart at msu.edu
Thu Sep 20 17:17:00 PDT 2007
> I'm still a little unclear as to what hakka is, other than the name
> of a quasi-regional "tribe" of boat dwellers around the coasts of
> China... quasi-regional in the sense that they're discussed with
> other regions, have their own dialect, cuisine, culture, etc. --
> just no place on the map to call home.
>
> I gather "haka" is a Maori dance? Looks a bit like a group kung-fu
> drill, too...
The haka can be a variety of things - war chant, greeting, call and response
"song" of sorts. There are a lot of different haka chant/postures that are
performed under different circumstances by various Polynesian tribal groups.
The haka that the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team performs is an "in your
face" haka - basically, "we're not just going to beat you, we're going to
beat you so hard your grandchildren will feel it!"
It's an important part of Polynesian culture to insult your enemies - a
good, zinging insult lasts longer than just killing the guy, after all.
If you look on Youtube, there's a clip of the New Zealanders doing their
thing and the opposing Tongan team responds with theirs.
Gives me goosebumps every time I watch it...
-Helena, putting away the art history hat for now...
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