Time to remedy that. And thankfully, we have this video of American basketball superstar Dwight Howard doing the dance of war with the New Zealand Colts rugby team as a starting point.
Weird, eh, that a massive black dude who earns US$16 million a year - check out the magnificent transparency of American sports - should be hanging with a bunch of pimply-faced New Zealand rugby players.
Such is the power of adidas, the German sports giant that is one of the major
(An aside: a rugby-loathing colleague loves to point out the irony of the fact the All Blacks ditched long-serving and local jersey manufacturer Canterbury for adidas, only for the Wallabies, in 1999, and the Springboks, in 2007, to win World Cups wearing Canterbury.)
So there's big Dwight, doing a half-passable job of Ka Mate alongside the cream of our rising rugby crop.
As haka-gates go, it can't possibly compare with the Spice Girls giving it a go in Bali in 1997, or Premier League football
And it's not near as bad as an Italian car company doing an ad with WOMEN performing the haka.
The haka has created so many headlines in recent years. We've had the All Blacks getting the pip in Cardiff and performing the haka inside their changing room; the French getting in the All Blacks' faces before the 2007 World Cup quarterfinal (obviously a good tactic); gingerbread men doing the haka; New Zealand chef de mission Dave Currie overdoing the haka.
Just this year, the NZRU has signed a deal - for a few dollars, one presumes - with the Ngati Toa tribe over the use of the haka, and it has been revealed visitors for the Rugby World Cup will be encouraged to learn the haka.
Most famously, of course, the All Blacks felt the need to invent their own haka, and unveiled Kapa o Pango at Carisbrook before a test against the Springboks in 2005. The new haka ended with a bizarre throat-slashing gesture, which was explained away as some sort of mystical drawing-life-into-our-lungs movement, but which was later altered to a less-offensive action.
Am I the only one who is haka-ed out?
Look, I was there in 2005, and there was genuine excitement when the new haka was unveiled. I've been as moved by the haka before significant tests as anyone else.
But the All Blacks have been far too precious about it over the years. They've also made the big mistake of claiming the haka is theirs, when in fact it belongs to all of us.
I also hate seeing the haka being done by so many different sports teams. To my mind, the haka should only be performed by the All Blacks, and by First XVs before traditional interschools.
A couple of excerpts from my previous columns.-
•White men can't haka
The Black Caps will be on high haka alert following the appointment of veteran Olympic official and noted war dance fan Dave Currie to the position of manager.
Given Currie's predilection for breaking out Ka Mate at the mere hint of New Zealand success, we can expect plenty of thigh-slapping fun should Brendon McCullum smash a century or Iain O'Brien take five wickets.
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• The haka was embarrassing . . .
Bejaysus. Now the Irish are doing the haka.
Well, not exactly the Irish. There was a Samoan, a Tongan, a Maori and a weedy white guy with a moustache belting out the war dance at Limerick's lovely Thomond Park on Wednesday morning.
Oh, and they were members of the home team. That's Munster. An Irish rugby team. Doing the haka, not a jig.
I don't know where to start. Just when you think there couldn't possibly be an embarrassing haka to match the one performed by the petulant All Blacks inside their dressing room in Cardiff three years ago, along come Rua Tipoki and company.
It was awful, bile-inducingly awful, to see members of a second-string Irish rugby team performing the haka in front of the second-string All Blacks.
The haka is already overdone and there is no place for it to be performed by players on the books of an overseas club.
It also sets a precedent. Teams around the world are stacked with expatriate New Zealanders. Feel free to haka away, gentlemen.
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• The haka drama continues
My feelings on the haka are (1) it is overdone, (2) the All Blacks get far too precious about it, and (3) it is overdone, especially by skinny white guys, bronze medallists and Ali Williams.
The horror continues.
First we have a haka hooha in the oxymoronically-named Rugby League World Cup, with the English snubbing the Kiwis' haka by turning their backs and discussing the latest happenings on Coronation Street in a huddle.
Outrage, mutterings of disrespect . . . the reaction was predictable.
Then some Irish plonker with a column goes off at the All Blacks, says that everybody hates them and labels the haka a "leery war dance". Brave stuff when your country has never tasted victory against the All Blacks.
But all this is nothing next to some potentially disturbing news coming out of an area close to my heart.
The Last Word understands the North Otago rugby team has been regularly performing a haka on its tour of Japan.
If it's a one-off and simply for the purpose of attracting attention and promoting New Zealand in a country known to love all things Kiwi, then I will suppress my gagging reflex for a moment.
But if North Otago has developed some sort of haka it intends to perform in the future, I will despair. Pray that it isn't true. It would be the worst thing to happen to a fine rugby province since some idiot coined the nickname Turbines.
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