Americans must not do traditional New Zealand haka war dance

An American college football team who started performing the haka made famous by New Zealand's All Blacks have stopped the pre-game ritual after backlash from New Zealanders.

The Arizona Wildcats, from the University of Arizona, have been forced to stop the war dance after it was slammed by critics who said it was insulting to the tradition of the Maori, the New Zealand Herald reports.

In the video the Wildcats team, clad in red, perform a haka at a much faster pace than it is usually completed and the player leading the team does not seem to pronounce the words properly during the rendition.

An Arizona Athletics spokesman told the newspaper it wasn't planned to come across as disrespectful, and he apologised if it caused offence.

'The Arizona football program has a strong lineage of Polynesian student-athletes, and in 2009, a group of players wished to share this aspect of their culture with their team mates and community,' the spokesman told the NZ Herald.

'As a result, the Ka Mate haka became part of the program's on-field pregame preparation starting that year.

'Even though that intent remains the same today, we've been made aware that a segment of the population is unhappy that the haka is being performed. As a result, we have decided to discontinue the activity.

SOURCE

Are the Kiwis being racist?