Heck Of A Guy

Friend, are your days filled with contentiousness and treachery?

Are you buffeted by a never ending, soul-sucking procession of dunderheads, dolts, and dirtbags with whom you must deal without reliable support?

Is it becoming more and more difficult to reach into your psychological reserves and find the strength to hold steadfast in the storm of mediocrity, dishonesty, and incompetence that threatens to overwhelm you while you’re trying to meet your responsibilities at work, at home, or in the community?

Be honest – how many times have you found yourself wishing, “If only I had I a dozen or so burly Polynesians performing the haka to revive my spirits and intimidate my opponents?”

Well, this is your lucky day because this very post announces the opening of

Heckofa Haka, Inc.

Wouldn’t it give you an edge if your next request for a raise were preceded by a couple of minutes during which a dozen 200-300 pound, tongue-thrusting, thigh-slapping Tonga warriors leapt about the office?

Or, perhaps you want to emphasize the importance of preserving your daughter’s virginity to her new boy friend. Is your ex-spouse’s divorce lawyer plundering your bank account? Does it feel as though you’re not getting your point across to your child’s teacher? Are you fed up with your therapist’s blank screen, neutral affect, I’m not here to give you advice attitude?

Ladies, do you want to make sure he understands that “no” means no?

Maybe there’s not even a bad guy. Maybe you just need the wherewithal to survive another day at the cheese processing plant, pound out one more blog posting, preach this week’s Sunday sermon, or endure those six minutes of conjugal obligation.

Heck, maybe you just want to add a little pizazz to your next PowerPoint presentation of XYZ Corporation’s Quarterly White Copy Paper And Associated Office Supplies Inventory & Predicted Utilization Rates or you feel compelled to give that presiding judge something to remember when he automatically intones “Do you have an opening statement?”

Stressful situations of this sort have long driven men and women to desperately grasp for a response. Many are those who have succumbed, for example, to strong drink, illicit substances, or, seduced by Garrison Keillor’s promise of “a wholewheat treat that gives shy people the strength to do what has to be done,” Powdermilk Biscuits. And while Rottweilers, lawyers, and the Popeil Pocket Bludgeon can have a place, many situations call for a more delicate touch and less messy results.

Heckofa Haka, Inc. provides a solution that is effective, legal, dolphin-safe, and non-fattening. For a surprisingly affordable fee, Heckofa Haka, Inc. will arrange for a well trained, appropriately groomed, fully equipped ensemble to perform a genuinely terrifying haka at the time and place of your choosing. We handle the logistics, including transportation and post-performance cleanup. We also provide, at no additional cost, consultation regarding the number and size of performers, the exact choreography, costuming, and other specific elements called for in a given situation.

The Haka

The haka is defined by the Wikipedia as

a Māori posture dance accompanied by chanted vocals. Haka actions may include facial gesticulations such as showing the whites of the eyes and poking out tongues and a wide variety of body actions including slapping the hands against the body and stamping feet. As well as chanted words, a variety of cries and grunts are used. … The hands, arms, legs, feet, voice, eyes, tongue and the body as a whole combine to express courage, annoyance, joy, or whatever feelings are relevant to the purpose. … War haka were originally performed by warriors before a battle, proclaiming their strength and prowess in order to intimidate the opposition.

While this description is factually accurate, it fails to convey just how impressive and intimidating this dance can be. Photos such as these are helpful.

Even these images pale, however, compared to watching live performers call, groan, grunt, slap their thighs and shoulders, twist their faces into fierce looks, bulge their eyes, leap into the air, and thrust out their tongues. While I suspect the tourist versions I saw were attenuated approximations, even those presentations were awesome, in the literal sense of the word.

Haka History

The tradition of the haka is integral to the Maori culture and mythology, and its roots predate recorded history.

While the haka has many other uses, it is best known as as a pre-battle invocation of ones own strength and courage as well as a challenge to and intimidation of ones enemies.

A presentation of the traditional haka can be viewed at Traditional Haka
(Requires Flash Player)

The Sports Connection

In contemporary times, it has become fashionable for athletic teams with Polynesian connections to psych up for games with the haka.

The best known team using the haka is New Zealand’s national rugby union team, the All Blacks. New Zealand’s Australian rules football (the Falcons) and basketball (Tall Blacks) teams have also taken up the haka, as have the football teams at Brigham Young University and University of Hawaii and soccer teams in Mexico.

The Euless Trinity (Texas) high school football team perform the haka before games, apparently to good effect. The Euless football team, with many players of Tongan descent,¹ was the 2005 Class 5A Division 1 Texas state champions. The Wall Street Journal describes the scene.

So imagine a recent evening when the Odessa Permian Panthers, whose historic dominance of Texas football inspired the book, movie and TV series “Friday Night Lights,” looked across the field and saw the rival Trinity Trojans doing a Polynesian war dance. At the sound of a tone blown over a large conch shell, 17-year-old senior defensive tackle Alex Kautai threw off his helmet, freeing a mane of curly black hair. He shouted several sentences in a foreign tongue and waved his arms as 93 visibly agitated teammates gathered behind him on the sidelines. On cue, they dropped into a wide, crouching stance and began the ritual known as the haka. “Ka Mate! Ka Mate! Ka Ora!” (We’re going to die! We’re going to die! We’re going to live!), they chanted in unison as the fans went wild. For the next 60 seconds, the players acted out an ancient battle in which a big hairy man saves the life of a Maori chieftain. With each phrase, the players slapped their thighs, arms or chests. They stomped back and forth, symbolically thrusting and jabbing at the enemy. At the end of the dance, Mr. Kautai jumped in the air and landed on one foot, his right fist in the air and his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he sneered fiercely.

Cool, eh?

The Epiphany

While all this is interesting, enlightenment was achieved only when I read, in a paragraph near the end of the WSJ article, that “the [Trinity High School] team has performed the haka at elementary-school assemblies in order to fire up the children before state-mandated tests.”

While the performance at the grade school may appear to most to be little more than filler inserted to avoid white space in the midst of a Wall Street Journal page, I must eschew the false modesty for which I am famous to point out that I immediately recognized its profound, culture-altering significance: The use of the haka in a new environments is arguably the slowest brand extension in history. In the thousands of years of haka history, the use of the dance had addressed only two new product areas: sports and grade school testing, leaving a plethora of profitable markets unserved.

And thus was Heckofa Haka, Inc. born.

Costs

As for price, can you afford not to have this guy on your side?

Heckofa Haka, Inc. offers both a yearly retainer plan and ala carte services. Extraordinary measures such as the whakapohane (the haka ritual of baring of ones buttocks to the opposition) are available at an additional fee.

Heckofa Haka offers special discounts for performances at birthday parties, retirement ceremonies, bar mitzvahs, coronations, weddings, opening statements of criminal trials, SATs, MCATs, LSATs, GREs, housewarmings, homecomings, proms, funerals, memorial services, births, vasectomies, evictions, convictions, evacuations of all kinds, beauty pageants, ballroom dancing championships at the regional level or higher, public executions, graduations, bridal showers, elections, inaugurations, canonizations, family reunions, gas and electric meter readings, patriotic assemblies, entertainment industry award ceremonies except the People’s Choice Awards, baptisms, circumcisions, Papal successions, treaty signings, impeachments, harvest celebrations, town and regional festivals celebrating anything edible at which a Queen of [insert edible substance here] is elected, first dates, book signings, movie openings, physical exams, dental extractions, holiday celebrations, orgies, and medication refills.

Haka Videos

New Zealand All Blacks Rugby Team

Trinity High Football Team – Euless, Texas #1

Trinity High Football Team – Euless, Texas #2

Portland Oregon Eastside Monkeys Rugby Team

1. The WSJ article points out that Most of the 24 players of Tongan descent on the Trinity football team weigh between 250 and 308 pounds and stand at least 6 feet tall.↩