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What is Maori Haka? Kardashians slammed for cultural appropriation as Kim and Kourtney's kids perform war dance

The clip was shared by Scott Disick who captioned it 'TikTok ya don't stop. Ain't got nothing on us!'

Kardashian clan is getting slammed on social media for being disrespectful towards Maori culture after a Tiktok video of Kardashian kids performing Haka surfaced on social media sites. On Sunday, Courtney Kardashian’s ex-husband Scott Disick posted a Tiktok clip of his daughter Penelope performing Maori Haka with Kim Kardashian’s kids Saint and North and two other children. Standing on the stairs, the kids performed their own take of Ka Mate, a Māori haka composed by Te Rauparaha, a war leader of the Ngāti Toa tribe of the North Island of New Zealand. The kids were also heard chanting the war cry of the Haka in an accurate pronunciation. The clip was shared by Disick who captioned it 'TikTok ya don't stop. Ain't got nothing on us!' 

Maori Haka is a type of ceremonial dance or challenge performed in Maori culture, an indigenous tribe of New Zealand, where a group of people gathered together to move vigorously with rhythmic shouting and foot-stomping. This passionate dance represents a tribe’s pride, strength and unity. The loud chanting which is an integral part of the Haka is also an ancient form of story-telling where a tribe poetically describes their history and origin. 

The video was slammed as wildly inappropriate by New Zealanders accusing the Kardashians of cultural appropriation. A user stated, sharing the dance video, “My heritage better not be a damned TikTok dance challenge. I don't care that they've learned the real words rather than making up their own, this is sacred. STOP APPROPRIATING CULTURES.” Another said, ‘Add to the list of things I didn’t expect to see this evening: the kardashian children doing a haka but tagging it as a tiktok dance? ? ? I’m so confused.” Another said, “Look I know those Kardashian kids are KIDS, but why is a sacred tradition and ‘dance’ of my Māori culture being put on tik tok like its a trend? That doesn’t sit right with me.” And added, “My culture is not a joke. The Haka  is not a ‘trend’ Its not just those kids its just everywhere, in the media, overseas (the US) specifically. movies/shows/people have have butchered it so bad + have used it in inappropriate contexts, that its being stripped of its true tapu.” 

This won’t be the first time that the Kardashian clan has been slammed for cultural appropriation. In 2019, Kim Kardashian received huge backlash for calling her newly launched shapewear collection ‘Kimono’ which later got changed to ‘skims’. In 2020 she drew flak for wearing mang-tikka (a traditional Indian head-gear) for a photoshoot. She has also received backlash for sporting cornrows on multiple occasions and mistakenly calling it ‘Bo Derek’ once.