While channel surfing, a friend of mine came upon the New Zealand Women’s Rugby Team World Cup finals against Ireland. The women of the NZ team performed the Maori warrior ritual Haka Dance. He urged me to check it out and I found it on YouTube. It is great. Talk about fierce! These beautiful strong women executed their synchronized warrior dance with accompanying stomping and shouting – which I couldn’t make out, but my guess would be, “prepare to die.” The Irish team, who looked fairly formidable themselves – and the Irish are a formidable people – seemed a little rattled. They stood close together and made a barrier of themselves, but it was diminished against this wall of power. I don’t know anything about rugby but the message was clear; these women don’t play and they mean some serious business.

I don’t want to spoil the ending but this was last year and NZ won. I wonder what the Irish team made of all that. I remember in school while studying the Roman Empire, we learned that the Romans attempted to invade Ireland several times – unsuccessfully. As our teacher put it, the Irish were too fractious. Her words not mine. Obviously, they were excellent fighters too since the Roman Army wasn’t anything to sneeze at. Maybe the Roman generals finally thought: screw it – there’s a whole lot of world to invade, so move on.

Back to the Haka. The Maori tribe is, like many of our indigenous tribes, a warrior society. As my friend put it, there were probably *some* other indigenous tribes in NZ, but not for long. You can see why. After watching the women, I checked out the men’s rugby team performing the yang version of the dance against France. Another wall of fierce strength and power.

On a more serious note, having seen movies like Once Were Warriors, it is evident that the Maori have not had an easy time assimilating from a warrior culture to whatever it is we live in today. The same is true of many of our Native American tribes. Not that I am in favor of fighting, but what do you do to a people when you take their society away from them? 

The heroic ideal is an ancient concept, where the warrior class was held in the highest regard. Think of the Iliad, Beowulf, The Old Testament, the oral poetry of Scandinavia, the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Japan, Asia, Africa – it is worldwide. Prowess and courage were honored.

Women, feel not excluded in this category. There are women warriors and women of great courage and prowess in myth and legend too: Athena, Diana, Penelope, the Amazon tribe, Kali, Grendel’s mother, Scathach, Queen Maeve, Joan of Arc..the list goes on. No “goat yoga” for this bunch! I can only imagine their scorn for this bougie “fad.” By the way, did anyone ask the goat if he/she wanted to be part of such ridiculousness? I’ve heard the term goat f*&%king which is military slang – not bestiality – where everything goes completely wrong. Now that our warrior women would appreciate. 

How the hell did I get here? With the news, nearly daily, of some man in power doing something unspeakable and non-consensual to women who are subordinate to them, perhaps we should take a leaf out of the NZ Women’s Rugby Team’s book and meet that indefensible action with a wall of ferocity, roar and the right amount of fury. Strike the pose! Or better yet: strike.

Clare Irwin

P.S. Another wonderful movie from New Zealand about a young girl’s struggle and victory is Whale Rider – highly recommended. And for those who still read, Milman Parry was the preeminent scholar of epic poetry and the oral tradition. Might be time to revive the old boy.