Blake Hall
This somber procession, portrayed in the video below is a “Haka”. It’s being given by hundreds of soldiers from the 1st and 2nd Battalion of the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment honoring three of their fallen brethren before their funeral in Christchurch.
Powerful and incredibly moving (as you can see), the ancestral war cry was created by Māori warriors and performed right before they headed into battle.
If you’re not familiar with the Māori, you should be, because as a fighting force they were easily one of the most interesting — and ferocious — to come about in modern times.
The New Zealand Wars are proof enough. Via Wikipedia, check out what they were able to do grossly outmanned versus mighty Great Britain in the 19th century:
At the peak of hostilities in the 1860s, 18,000 British troops, supported by artillery, cavalry and local militia, battled about 4000 Māori warriors in what became a gross imbalance of manpower and weaponry. Although outnumbered, the Māori were able to withstand their enemy with techniques that included anti-artillery bunkers and the use of carefully placed pa, or fortified villages, that allowed them to block their enemy advance and often inflict heavy losses, yet quickly abandon their positions without significant loss.
In the aftermath of the conflict, the British drew up a peace treaty that slyly confiscated millions of acres of land from the native New Zealanders. While much of it was eventually given back, it wasn’t necessarily delivered to its original owners.
The confiscation is still being battled out in courtrooms across the country today.