Maori tattoo design inspired by the Haka

This tattoo design was inspired by watch the Haka. I was watching this video of a Flash mob Haka in Queen street Auckland link to video here. It was very inspiring and got me interesting in what the haka was saying. although this Haka is not the Ka mate Ka mate  Haka that we see most of the time I looked up what the words for the haka meant. I found the translation for the Ka mate Ka mate  Haka.

This is quoting Wikipedia link to full article here

Ka mate, ka mate           ‘I die, I die,
Ka ora’ Ka ora’                 ‘I live, ‘I live,
Ka mate, ka mate           ‘I die, ‘I die
Ka ora Ka ora ”                ‘I live, ‘I live,
Tēnei te tangata pūhuruhuru      This is the hairy man
Nāna i tiki mai whakawhiti te rā     …Who caused the sun to shine again for me
A Upane! Ka Upane!                                       Up the ladder, Up the ladder
Upane Kaupane”                Up to the top
Whiti te rā,!                              The sun shines!
Hī!                          Rise!

end of Quote.

Most other translations I found for the Ka mate, ka mate  section say ” it is death” instead   “I die”

But I digress, So here is the design that I came up with for a tattoo inspired by the Haka. I wanted to try and capture the feeling of the downward force of the stomping and also not miss the upward energy as well. I have done a couple of versions of the design and also the outline for making a stencil from if you want to take to it your local tattooist to get tattooed on you.

 Haka inspired tattoo designs.

New Zealand Maori Haka inspired tattoo

This is my New Zealand Maori Haka inspired tattoo with shading to give it a bit of depth.

Maori tattoo Haka

 This version of the Haka inspired tattoo design is my way of looking at the first couple of lines of the Ka mate, ka mate Haka the this is life this is death buy swapping the black and the white around and having the design on a black background. I think it would look quite striking as a tattoo maybe make the white lines a little bolder if you were just going to leave them skin colour, but if you actually tattoo them as white it would look stunning. Note this would also look good with black light ink as the white.

Maori Haka design

Here is the outline or stencil version in case you want to recolour it different or so you can take this image to your local tattooist and get them to make a stencil of this design for you.

Also here are some of my other Maori designs and New Zealand related pictures.

Maori Font	Sleeve design korus	The Sun	Maori Scorpion
Koru Designs	Taniwha Dragon Design	Silver fern eyes	The Moon
Maori Pattern sleeve	Tiki	Yin Yang koru	Maori Sleeve

Silverfern Heart	Silver Fern Koru	NZ map Silver fern	Silver fern Sharp leaves
Silver Fern	Silver Fern straight leaves	Tribal Fern

All images unless otherwise noted are copyright to Scott Bensemann. Please email me for permission to use these images for anything other than your own personal tattoos.