Many thanks to Wendye and Café Babylon for allowing me to post this small piece.
The maori haka is famous for its use at the beginning of rugby games, and sometimes other places as well, such as ceremonies to welcome important visitors to the marae. This particular version, put up by a Russian site no less, is the classic and maybe original haka, though many other types came to be used as tribes moved about New Zealand and took territory or not, often after terrible conflicts with very gruesome outcomes. (ISIS has nothing on our maori ancestors.) Even in the wars with the British, whose weapons one would think vastly superior, maori fought the invaders to a standstill. The Treaty of Waitangi was born out of this, a time when the chiefs met as equals with British officialdom to parlay.
Have a good look at this haka. The words that stand out are: It is death! It is life! The story that goes with this chant is that the original composer, Te Rauparaha, much like the composer of the American anthem, Francis Scott Key, was in prison when he wrote the song, quite literally down in a pit, filling himself with the volition to get out of there, (which I imagine he did.)
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