TGIF: Maori War Dance

The haka is the traditional dance form of the Maori of New Zealand. Dances may contain stamping of the feet, slapping of the thighs, pounding of the fists, smacking of the elbows. This is accompanied with rhythmic shouted accompaniment sometimes taking the form of yells or battle cries. Maori War Dances are special forms of haka. You may be asking why I am discussing Maori culture at DSN.

My first deep-sea biology meeting took place in nearly ten years ago in Galway, the 9th such meeting to occur. Next summer in Reykjavik, Iceland marks the 12th. Part of the meeting is the traditional Thursday night banquet for all attendees.  The banquet Thursday night begins with a tradition that is very dear to my heart.

Torbin Wolff is one of the elder statesmen of deep-sea biology.  For many years he held the reigns of the deep-sea newsletter and striving to foster the deep-sea community.  He both organized and attended early deep-sea meetings including what is viewed as the first deep-sea biology meeting in 1953 on the distribution and origin of the deep-sea bottom fauna.  Torbin Wolff, is more than a great caretaker of the field, is contributions to deep-sea taxonomy and our understanding of the evolution, biogeography, and biodiversity of deep-sea faunas is seminal.  He was active participant in one of the legendary around the world deep-sea expeditions, the Danish Galathea Expedition (1950-1952), which ultimately led to a plethora of descriptions of new deep-sea species (20 volumes).

During this expedition, as the story goes, Torbin was taught a Maori War Dance by a great Maori chief, a great honor for an outsider.  The tradition very dear to my heart was Torbin beginning every deep-sea biology meeting banquet, reenacting this dance (usually atop a dining table), retelling how he come to learn the dance, and telling other vivid tales of adventures from the Galathea Expedtion.

So in honor of deep-sea biology and of course Torbin Wolff…