The great Maori warriors of old would have a pre-battle ritual, the Haka. It was a combination dance and chant intended to both psych up their own side and intimidate the other side. The Maori swept the South Seas islands clean of opposition, in part because of this.
The ritual continues to this day, with the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team, likely the best rugby team on the planet. Pretty amazing when you consider that there are twice as many people in the Atlanta metropolitan area as in the entirety of New Zealand. But if Atlanta has a rugby team, I haven't heard of it.
This is a great example of a Haka, not just because it's typical for the All Blacks, but because they were playing Fiji who led the ceremony off with their own version, the Cibi. Imagine a battlefield in days of yore, with a thousand warriors on each side doing this before picking up lethal weapons. The hair on the back of my neck stands up watching this.
This is a more extended Haka which really highlights the intimidation factor.
To this day the Kiwi Armed Forces welcome back their fallen brothers with a ceremonial Haka.
"The Maori swept the South Seas islands clean of opposition,"
ReplyDelete30 second history lesson. About 700 years ago, the Maori occupied unoccupied New Zealand. They did not get any farther. Other groups of Polynesians did go as far as Hawaii and Easter Island, but they were not Maori, and those islands were also unoccupied. Not much of a sweep.
Atlanta has the Renegades, who play in division 1.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.atlantarenegades.com/
Slightly different viewpoint:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8Z8Y0g0cEQ
Man. In my day (early '70s), we used to just slap our thigh pads and clap in rhythm, waiting for the offense to break huddle and line up.
ReplyDeleteI can't find the article, but there's a town in Texas with a lot of Samoan immigrants & families, and the football team decided they wanted to start games with a Haka. The coach had them work it up and recorded, then at a town meeting played it and asked if anyone had any objections. Response boiled down to "HELL no!"
ReplyDeleteAs I recall, said a couple of old men were in tears, one said "This proves that this is home!"