Thursday, March 4, 2010

The Haka and a love song


The Maori people are the native people of New Zealand, coming here before any Europeans arrived. To protect themselves, they used intimidation as part of their warfare. They thought that if they could scare people off before the fight then they would not have to go to war. So they would do the Haka which is their posture war dance used to scare off the enemy. The Maori are traditionally very big and have long tongues which they stick out as part of their war dance. When we entered the place of gathering for the Maori people, we took off our shoes to show respect. We were also asked not to smile or laugh since what they were doing was very serious.

2 comments:

  1. This must have been very difficult not to even smile. Wow

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  2. Are those girls signing what they are singing?
    I wonder if their traditional scare people off dance actually worked to scare people off sometimes.
    What fun videos these were!
    And you and Shawn look fantab with your long tongues!

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