How old is the Haka...

After calls from a UK journalist to have it banned from this week's All Blacks match against England Pita Sharples piped in and said:

"That's our country's ritual, its based in tradition going way back a thousand years, and if they don't like it, fine."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10544767

Makes me wonder.. there is no definitive record of which exact people came to NZ, but the evidence here suggests it happened well under 1000 years ago. Does Dr Sharples know some details which has eluded historians and scientists for decades?

So - how old is the concept of the haka in NZ?

R

Huh? I'll accept that the majority of people probably didn't arrive until 800 years ago or so (the so called "Great Fleet" but the generally agreed consensus is that migaration started around 1000AD. Most think Kupe was here a little over 1000 years ago (950AD, 750AD in some of the now discredited theories).
So it's fair to say off the cuff that Maori have been here for a thousand years and it would be a fair assumption to make that the haka pre-dates arrival in NZ given it's predominance in other Pacifica cultures as well...

Weird point Rob?!

I just wonder why the 'culture' thing always gets hauled out to demonstrate a right of some sort... but is conveniently ignored when it doesn't suit the purpose. Is 1000 years pushing it majorly or in-line with what has and can be proven?

The culture thing to demonstrate a right, sure.
But in this case I think he's accurate enough for an off-the-cuff comment (wouldn't expect him to say 913 years for example)

How old is "English" culture then?

Is it British culture? Anglo-Norman?

Obviously much harder to define, with Maori we have the useful line of a relatively recent arrival on a new landmass.
It was cool that in my speech for my "UK wedding", I got to say that parts of the cathedral in which we had the ceremony had been there since before any man stepped foot in NZ though...

Which cathedral was this?

Cool thought eh. A house on my old street in Bangkok had the same family living there since before white-man discovered NZ... crazy to think. They had a family tree there of people who'd lived in the house (it was a big house - more like a cluster of them).. and it has hundreds of people on it.

Thats what i find both great and missing in NZ. In Rome we stayed in an apartment that was more than 600 years old and walked on steps that had been there for 2500 years. My gfs grandparents live in a house thats 475 years old, complete with wooden slat and clay walls/ceilings.

By the same token because we are a young nation we have left some of the things that can hold other cultures back, though in the same regard it means we might not have as much stability.

Nothing wrong with the Haka for sporting events but i do cringe when its done everywhere/all the time.

A good reason not to watch too much sport....
It's like the introductory sequence of Family Guy. Fun once. Slightly annoying the second time, and by the time you've finished the box set, you're an expert at timing the fast forward so you miss it all.

I still like to see the haka. It is part of what makes NZ culture NZ culture.

Without it, we'd have one less brick to our home.

Ely in Cambridgeshire - some pieces still stand from the original rebuild of this cathedral in 1083 (so I may have taken a slight liberty with the uncertain nature of our history for oratory purposes )
First church building on the site was in 673...