"The Dance of the Warrior", Indigenous Cultures & their Traditional Protocols in Sports; a Look into the Māori haka and the Hawaiian Haʻa Koa

Abstract

The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UH Mānoa or UH) Athletic programs are the only NCAA Division 1 sports in Hawaiʻi. With no professional sports team for Hawaiʻi residents to rally behind, the eyes of Hawaiʻi are often set on these student-athletes of UH Mānoa. In 2005, when New Zealand's All Black Rugby team perform their haka, Kapa O Pango, the UH Mānoa football team performed that very same haka before their competition, which caused many mixed emotions among people. Māori experts, from which the haka originated, were left with uneasy feelings of cultural appropriation. This resulted in UH Football coming out with the “haʻa,” a Hawaiianized version of the Māori's haka. This resulted in the Hawaiian community at the time, fostering the idea of a hawaiianized haka and turning it into something beneficial for the “Lāhui,” or Hawaiian nation. The term slightly altered into the Haʻa Koa, “haʻa” meaning "dance" and "koa" meaning “warrior,” making it “the dance of the warrior.” This study aims to discover the UH student-athlete’s cultural understandings of the haʻa/ haʻa koa they perform at sporting events. Also, looking into Native Hawaiians who have fostered the haʻa/haʻa koa and their feelings towards the UH student-athletes using this cultural ritual to represent Hawaiʻi. A total of seven participants were interviewed to find significant themes. The selection consists of two participant groups: Native Hawaiians who know the haʻa koa/ haʻa and the second group being UH male student-athletes who have performed a haʻa at their sporting event. The findings showed four common themes between the two groups: 1) History; 2) Pride; 3) Respect; 4) Aloha. Both parties indicated a great deal of appreciation for each other within the interviews. The first theme, History, displayed the Native Hawaiian perspective on their origins of the haʻa and the student-athlete what they know of their own program’s haʻa. The second theme, Pride both participants expressed their pride in either program’s history or culture. The third theme, Respect, looked more into a reflective tone as both groups found respect for each other and the uses the haʻa provides. The last theme, Aloha, consisted of feelings of admiration and appreciation for representing the culture and the Native Hawaiians with feelings of gratitude towards the student-athletes representing the Hawaiian culture.