How to do the Haka

 Last week we went to a festival in south Auckland celebrating the "retracing" of the original harbor crossing of Hoturoa (not sure who he is though) on discovering the Manukau Harbor.  Basically, it was a race of canoes and their crews, portaging the canoe for 5 km and paddling 15 km.   The festival site was at the end of the race. So that was all okay.

 I do think it must have been one of the hottest days that we've had here this summer, and there wasn't a tree in sight.  There also wasn't very much to the festival--a couple of overpriced inflatables for the kids (we passed), several food carts, and one tent selling Bob Marly-esque t-shirts.  We stayed around for much of the afternoon because we wanted to see these contemporary fiberglass wakas and see what was so special about the occasion.  They are a lot bigger on land:

After all of the canoes had arrived, there was a Maori ceremony celebrating the winners and the event.  First there was some intonations between two Maori women and then there were a number of speeches by some prominent men and organizers.  At this point we still weren't sure what we were in for.

We are SO excited that we did stay because we were extremely fortunate to see two spontaneous hakas by the crew that won the race.  The first one was so spontaneous and maybe even surprising (since the entire ceremony was in Maori, we really weren't sure what was going on at points) that we just had to watch.  There were about 20 men doing the haka only about 10 feet in front of us.  We didn't get any of it on tape.  

We were really thrilled that there was the second, smaller haka.   

Here is the video of it.  Again, sorry for the shakes, as we don't have the technology to correct here. (you'll have to click over to the website to view the video)...

The kids were enthralled.  We were excited.  It was one of the best experiences we've had here and it was all spontaneous.  

In fact, the event had such an impact that it has infiltrated other parts of our lives.  One of the mainstays of play in our household has been puppet shows that the kids perform behind the couch.  This is a great moment, a "behind the scenes" moment:  

L and M are performing for R (on the other side of the couch), and the show consists of Casper doing the haka.  The real haka, to haka music, doing haka moves.  L is consulting a book on haka.  Here is the page he is looking at: