Deeper Dive: Māori Haka Taps into Deep Emotions

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Announcer: This is a Getty podcast.

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Lilit Sadoyan: Hello, I’m Lilit Sadoyan, the host of OMMM, Our Museum Mindfulness Meditation podcast.  Welcome to this Deeper Dive,  where we explore the themes of our weekly episodes with experts in everything from  from astrology to the history of the color blue.

Amelia Butler: A big part of the haka, or to be able to express yourself like that, is to actually clear space in your body to receive the haka so that you can express the haka.

Sadoyan: This week, we did a progressive muscle relaxation exercise inspired by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt’s sculpture, The Vexed Man. To understand the power of this sculpture’s exaggerated expression, I spoke with Māori cultural practitioner Amelia Butler about haka performance. Amelia is the founder and director of Learn Māori Abroad, as well as a dancer, performer, and choreographer. Now let’s dive in.

[On video call] Amelia, thank you so much for joining me.

Butler: Thanks so much for having me on the podcast, Lilit.

Sadoyan: Of course, it’s my pleasure. So this week we explored an extremely expressive sculpture entitled Vexed Man by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt. And we did a progressive muscle relaxation exercise where you tense your muscles and hold it, and then release in order to more fully relax. And so the reason why I wanted to talk to you about the sculpture is that I was looking at the sculpture and really thinking about all the different ways and places that we hold these exaggerated expressions, and how these expressions themselves also hold power. And haka came to mind because I’ve seen haka, and the facial expressions instantly capture my attention. So can you talk a little bit about what haka is for those of us who are unfamiliar with that, and maybe only know it from watching sports?

Butler: Yeah, sure. So as Māori, the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand, haka is our traditional Māori war dance. And if we think about back before colonization, haka was part of warfare, part of the battle. And so the idea was that the tribe would perform a haka, then the hope was that it would be so scary, so ferocious–so ferocious, so intense that it would actually scare the opposing tribe and that the battle would never occur.

But of course nowadays, as you mentioned, we see it on the sports field. It was made famous by our All Blacks rugby team, our national team of Aotearoa New Zealand. We also share haka to honor a person. There are many haka online, from birthdays, celebrations, anniversaries, funerals to honor a specific person. And then of course, we use haka for protests. So we did a haka at the Black Lives Matter protest in Auckland, New Zealand. And more recently one of our youngest MPs, Hana, did a haka in Parliament to protest against the Treaty Rights Bills. So it has become this global phenomenon, where it’s gone viral online. A lot of people know about it and, and have seen it, and then often want to experience it as well.

Sadoyan: And can you describe what haka looks like for someone who hasn’t seen it before?

Butler: Sure. So haka is the full body movement. So we are doing the Waewae takahia here, which is the stamp or stomp—in New Zealand we say stamp, I know here they say stomp. And it’s also the wiri wiri, which is the shaking of the hands. Wiri wiri means to shake, and that hand shaking motion is our connection to nature. Of course, it is the facial gesture that we call pūkana, the bulging eyes, and the mouth turned in, and the frown for the women. And we have the bulging eyes and the tongue protruding for the men. And then we also have the chant, so the chant itself. So there are thousands of different haka that have been composed, the most well-known being the Ka Mate haka by Chief Te Rauparaha from Ngāti Toa tribe, and that was written over 200 years ago.

The movements also make sounds, so we’ve got, you know, the slapping, the stamping. So it’s a full activation with the body, with the voice, with the face, also with the mind, and the soul, and the spirit, the wairua.

Sadoyan: Wonderful. And so although we’re talking about a completely different time and place, I’m wondering if you see any parallels between the bust, where the sculptor’s really trying to make sense of the power of emotion, and the Māori tradition with which you’re engaged with haka.

Butler: Yes, absolutely. So I know we’re talking specifically about the facial gesture in our kapa haka, our traditional Māori performing arts. We express ourselves using the pūkana, which is the facial gesture you see us doing. It could be—it’s mainly in haka, but it’s also throughout our other kapa haka, songs and dances.

And so, as Māori we say that the pūkana is our deepest most spirit being expressed on the face. And so, uh, when I see the sculpture, I do see this as an expression of the artist’s spirit, the sculpture’s spirit, being expressed externally through the facial gesture. And just as we would do the pūkana, uh, pūkana can be used to express a range of different emotions from happiness to joy, excitement to rage, anger, and frustration. Now, when we do think about the pūkana, there are some slight differences depending on if it is a tāne, a man, or a wahine, a woman, doing the pūkana. So as wāhine, we actually don’t poke our tongue out. So often you’ll see that if you’ve watched a haka video, the men, and it is only the men, who do the protruding tongue. Now, both men and women, tāne and wāhine, do the bulging eyes, the big eyes. And then us as wāhine, we do—we bring our lips in, and then we do a frown. And what I thought was interesting is that the sculpture is doing the same [Sadoyan: Yes!] with, yeah, with the lips, the mouth, and the muscles around the mouth, and it’s very similar. So when I did—when I first saw the sculpture, it reminded me of what we do as women, when we do the women’s pūkana.

And just to give a quick demo for those who are watching the video here. Um, so this is the women’s pūkana, and of course, just the only difference for the men is that they would stick out their tongue. [pauses to demonstrate] So it’s the big eyes, and then as you notice with my mouth, a very similar shape that we’re making there as the sculpture.

Sadoyan: So I’m wondering first if you could talk a little bit more about that idea of life force and energy and how that’s expressed.

Butler: So it—from our cultural perspective, we see different things as having mauri. So mauri is translated as life force, life energy, or life essence. And so of course, us as humans, we have mauri, animals have mauri, plants have mauri, um, stones, rocks, crystals have mauri. Even buildings have mauri. And so sometimes you walk into a space, whether that’s nature or into a building, and you can just….you can feel the mauri. You know, you might walk into a church and you can feel the sacredness, or go into a beautiful spot in nature and you feel that energy. And so that mauri, or that life essence, is part of not only, you know, us as humans in nature, but also of objects.

And so, uh, looking at this sculpture, the sculpture also has mauri, that life force, that life energy. And so, uh, what happens is, from a Māori perspective, if we are creating something, especially with our hands, but creating something, we’re putting our mauri into that thing. And so therefore, the sculpture possesses the mauri of the creator, the artist, the sculpturer, and so that’s reflected on—actually it’s reflected in every element of the sculpture, but specifically the facial gesture because that comes across very strongly from a visual perspective. But even from the material the sculpture used to create, yeah, create the sculpture. So the artist’s mauri is imbued into the sculpture, and then that mauri is then reflected. And so, you know, when someone looks at the sculpture, they might experience an emotion, and so that’s part of the mauri of the sculpture coming out and, um, you know, us connecting with the mauri of the sculpture, and so experiencing that emotion that the artist intended us to experience from witnessing, from looking at the piece.

Sadoyan: It’s incredible. Amelia, how do you teach people to tap into that power of expression and emotion?

Butler: You mean with my work teaching haka?

Sadoyan: Yes!

Butler: Okay. Um, yes. So I teach haka all over Turtle Island, the USA. And, you know, a really big part of haka is actually learning to release and to let go. And so when we think about that word haka, it means dance, it’s our traditional Māori war dance, but when we break it down, the word ha is actually the word for breath, and the word ka means to ignite. And so when we’re doing the ha-ka, the haka, we are igniting the breath, or I like to think of that as igniting the ancestral fire within.

And so when I teach haka, the first thing I start with is the breath. And so we use the breath, you know, inhaling, and then we exhale using that word ha. And so we actually say the word ha, we vocalize it. So we inhale the mauri, the life force, the life essence, and then we exhale, we release anything that’s not serving us, any sort of negative energy, any sort of stress, worries that we’re experiencing in our life, and so on and so forth. And so a big part of the haka, or to be able to express yourself like that, is to actually clear space in your body to receive the haka so that you can express the haka.

So what you’ll notice when you see someone doing the haka is that they are in the present moment. They are 100% in the haka. They’re fully embodying the traditional war dance, um, because there’s just no other way to do it. You’re really very much in the moment. You’re not thinking about anything else. You’re not worried about what someone else might be thinking of you. And so we do say that haka is a powerful way to tap into your most authentic self and to fully express yourself. And we see that when we’re witnessing and watching a haka, um, that goes back to our ability to be able to release, um, release any sort of thoughts in our mind, disempowering thoughts, and then to embody the haka.

And so this is how—part of how—I teach the haka, because here, in this country and in the Western world, there’s not really a similar way that we can express ourselves, specifically when we think about more heavier emotions like rage, anger, frustration. There’s not always a way that we can express that in a healthy dynamic. And so the haka does give us a powerful way to release and express any sort of emotions.

Sadoyan: The release does remind me so much of that progressive muscle relaxation exercise that I mentioned at the top of our conversation, but also it sounds like there are so many benefits to haka, um, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

Butler: Yes, it’s absolutely a full body activation. So not only is it the facial gesture, the pūkana, it’s the full body movement, and then of course it’s the vocalization, it’s the chant. So it is a full body activation. And then, you know, often when we do the haka, we’ll create an intention as well. So, we often—we will do haka to overcome an obstacle, and so we’re doing haka to overcome that particular obstacle that we’re facing in our life.

So yes, it’s a very powerful, empowering way that we can express ourselves and connect in a deeper way, to our most authentic self.

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Sadoyan: Incredible. Amelia, thank you so much for sharing all of this with me and with our listeners. I’m really grateful for the opportunity to connect with you.

Butler: Oh, ngā mihi nui. Thank you so much, Lilit.

Sadoyan: To find the related meditation and see images, transcripts, and additional resources, visit our website at Getty dot edu slash ommm. That’s O-M-M-M.