"The war cry before starting play"
There are hundreds of visitors landing here because they have searched for "haka" or "kapo o pango" or "maori war cry" in their preferred search engine... for them, and for all of you who like rugby history, I am very pleased to post today an illustrated story of the very, very first haka... ever... I mean the "maori war cry" brought to England in 1888 by these strange ruggers from the Colonies - the Maoris.
I recently purchased a newspaper print (Illustrated London News, Oct.13 1888) that shows highlights of the Maoris playing against Surrey the week before. You can check the players dressed like super-heroes giving their "war cry" to the crowd and to their opponents.
Sean Fagan brings a great piece of news here... the Haka was just meant to attract more paying spectators at the gate... not so glorious, indeed... You can read the full story on Sean's website here (Sean is the owner of www.rl1908.com which is mostly dedicated to Australian rugby, and also of www.colonialrugby.com.au which covers, as the name says it, the early of rugby in New Zealand and South Africa as well)
The war-cry originated with the NZ Native (Maori) team that toured Australia & the UK in 1888/89. The tour was a money-making venture for the promoters and players. They sought to increase crowds at matches by performing a haka in full Maori costume before and after games. They also performed concerts at local town halls etc.
The haka tradition (and the all black playing kit) stuck with subsequent NZ representative teams and became a tradition. In 1905 the NZ All Blacks made it so famous, that all subsequent colonial teams were expected to have a native war-cry too.The All Blacks' haka is really our last link to rugby union in the 1880s, a time when the code embraced all classes of people & condoned forms of semi-professionalism amongst the players.However, within a few years the RFU turned the code towards the ideals of pure amateurism, and the split that caused rugby league eventuated (1895). In a truly amateur sense, the use of the war-cry should have been banned by the RFU as it was pure "show business".
You could also enjoy this link - thanks Sean - to the New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage 
detailing the story (but basically the same illustrations than me...)
Let me enlarge the other drawings....
(nota : at the time, they were two umpires on the pitch, each team providing one of them)
And to go quickly through the following decades, lets post or re-post images of the Haka in 1905 (thanks to Wes), in 1932 (thanks to John) and in 2005 (this famous video of the All Blacks Haka vs South Africa during the TriSeries).
That was a pretty long post, wasn't it... ?
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