Arizona Wildcats Football Team Stops Haka Dance After Criticism

According to NewZealand.com, the Haka dance was traditionally performed on the battlefield and was a “display of a tribe’s pride, strength and unity”.

Arizona’s game against UCLA last week was broadcast on ABC, and the cameras showed Arizona’s pre-game ritual, which led to an outcry on social media and, eventually, the petition to UA president Ann Weaver Hart to stop the Wildcats from performing it in the future.

It’s the use of the Ngāti Toa Rangatira haka, “Ka Mate” which has been etched in to the hearts of many Māori, however, many American universities have taken a shine to it also.

“Even though that intent remains the same today, we’ve been made aware that a segment of the population is unhappy that the haka is being performed”, the university added.

Arizona’s athletic department issued a statement saying the team did not intend to offend anyone. “As a result, we have chosen to discontinue the activity”.

It’s not as blatantly contemptuous as Matt Dawson’s recent “Hakarena” mock-up of New Zealand’s ancestral Maori war cry, but it’s creating similar controversy. The team had been regularly performing a Maori dance known as a haka for six years.

Arizona said it will seek alternative ways for Polynesian athletes to share their heritage. A few see it as an opportunity to teach the Americans about the haka’s meaning and to perform it properly.

Ngati Toa runanga chair Taku Parai described the performance as “pathetic” and thought they should stop until they could do the haka justice. It helped the teammates connect to their culture and was used as a way to get them and the crowd fired up.