Haka for my father
Kia ora, I’m sure this sub and the NZ sub likely get a similar inquiry as this on a regular basis and I bet many of you are tired of it. But I wanted to ask nonetheless as it felt like the right thing to do.
Back in February I wrote a formal letter to the Ngāti Toa requesting permission to perform “Ka Mate” in full (not the sports/All Blacks version) for my brother who was graduating from navy basic training. I had a video prepared for submission to ensure that the Haka was performed not only respectfully but correctly and with mana. I made this request primarily because my father was not able to attend due to illness and I thought it would be a gesture my brother would appreciate. We aren’t Māori, not even Kiwi at all, we’re Asian-American whose only connection to the Māori are extremely faint and increasingly rare linguistic and cultural similarities through an extremely distant shared origin, however, my dad instilled in us a deep appreciation and admiration for the Māori culture and people and many others when we were kids. The first time I was ever exposed to the Haka was when my dad showed it to us on Encarta Kids over twenty years ago. Neither of them knew how significant that exposure would be for my development and my interests as ever since then I’ve had a fascination for the many cultures of the Pacific. My dad is a marine biologist who routinely took us to work trips out at sea and regularly bombarded us with random facts (sometimes factoids) about maritime cultures and naval history. I love my mom but I definitely took after my dad and his love of the ocean and world cultures more lol. While the Ngāti Toa public relations office were initially very responsive, once my request got handed over to the Haka committee it may have ran into some problems as I never received approval nor rejection and so I never performed it. Now however my dad isn’t in the best of shape, I try to be optimistic but I know he doesn’t have much left. That said, I wanted to ask if it would be acceptable for me, a complete outsider, to perform a Haka for my old man without the consent of the Iwi who has ownership? (done in as respectful and as culturally appropriate a manner as possible of course.) Thank you.