Culture

Mocking the haka: The Haka Party Incident and ‘casual’ racism in New Zealand

15 Mar , 2021  

For 20 years Māori had written to the engineering school at Auckland University asking them to stop an annual event where students would dress up in grass skirts and perform the university haka ‘Akarana’ as a capping day lark. By the 1970s it had morphed into a grotesque mimic, where the engineers would draw penises and curse words on their body – a caricature of tā moko – get very drunk, charge around the university causing chaos, and stop traffic up and down Queen Street to perform the haka.

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