Ka Mate

The story

"Ka Mate" is a Māori haka composed by Te Rauparaha, the leader of the iwi (tribe) of Ngāti Toa of the North Island of New Zealand during the Musket Wars. Around 1820, pursued by enemies of Ngāti Maniapoto and Waikato, he hid on Motuopihi Island in Lake Rotoaira inside a kūmara (sweet potato) storage pit, while a woman named Rangikoaea sat astride the pit to hide and protect him. When he climbed out into the sun he composed the haka in gratitude to Rangikoaea and her husband Te Wharerangi, as a celebration of life over death. It opens with a chant, followed by the main body of the haka. It was made as a short, energising haka of the ngeri type, which has no set movements: performers chant and move as they feel, with no need to keep together.

"Ka Mate" became the best-known haka in New Zealand and abroad because a choreographed, synchronised version has been performed before test matches by the All Blacks, New Zealand's rugby union team, and by the Kiwis, its rugby league team, until 2013, when the Kiwis took up "Te Iwi Kiwi". Before 1985 most of the All Blacks, players of European descent, had no full training in it; two Māori players, Buck Shelford and Hika Reid, changed the way it was delivered to a style close to the original, and from then on the non-Māori players learned it. Since 2005 the All Blacks have sometimes performed another haka, "Kapa o Pango", instead; their haka leader TJ Perenara explained before the 2019 Rugby World Cup that in Wellington they always perform "Ka Mate", in respect for Te Rauparaha and the lands he walked on. All 22 international rugby union sides that have played the All Blacks have faced it at least once.

Between 1998 and 2006 Ngāti Toa tried to register "Ka Mate" as a trademark to stop commercial use without their permission; in 2006 the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand refused, on the grounds that the haka had come to represent New Zealand as a whole rather than any one trader. In 2009, as part of a wider settlement of the iwi's grievances, the New Zealand government agreed to record the authorship and significance of the haka to Ngāti Toa and to work with them on their concerns, though not to give royalties or a veto over its performance. In March 2011 the New Zealand Rugby Union reached an agreement with the iwi not to bring the mana of the haka into disrepute.

On 14 November 2024, during the first reading of the Treaty Principles Bill, which sought to set out interpretations of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi between Māori and the Crown, the Te Pāti Māori member Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke tore a copy of the bill in half and led "Ka Mate", joined by her party, other opposition members and the public gallery. The Speaker, Gerry Brownlee, suspended the sitting for 20 minutes, had the gallery cleared and named her, suspending her from Parliament for 24 hours.

What it says

The haka celebrates life over death. Composed by a chief who had just escaped his pursuers, it turns the moment of coming out of hiding into the light into a cry of survival and thanks, performed with the full energy of voice and body.

The words