Kī-o-rahi is a ball

sport Sport pertains to any form of Competition, competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and Skill, skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to specta ...

played in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

with a small round ball called a 'kī'. It is a fast-paced game incorporating skills similar to

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

netball Netball is a ball sport played on a court by two teams of seven players. It is among a rare number of sports which have been created exclusively for female competitors. The sport is played on indoor and outdoor netball courts and is specifical ...

tag rugby Tag-rugby belt Tag rugby, or flag rugby, is a non-contact team game in which each player wears a belt that has two velcro tags attached to it, or shorts with velcro patches. The mode of play is based on rugby league with many similarities to to ...

and

touch In physiology, the somatosensory system is the network of neural structures in the brain and body that produce the perception of touch (haptic perception), as well as temperature (thermoception), body position (proprioception), and pain. It is ...

.Shane Gilchrist
'Game on, the "ki" is back in court'
, ''

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'', 5 October 2007 Two teams of eight players play on a circular field divided into zones, and score points by touching the 'pou' (boundary markers) and hitting a central 'tupu' or target. The game is played with varying rules (e.g. number of people, size of field, tag ripping rules etc.) depending on the geographic area it is played in. A process called Tatu, before the game, determines which rules the two teams will use. In 2005 kī-o-rahi was chosen to represent New Zealand by global fast-food chain

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as part of its 'Passport to Play' programme to teach physical play activities in 31,000 American schools. The programme will give instruction in 15 ethnic games to seven million primary school children. The New Zealand kī-o-rahi representative organisation, ''Kī-o-Rahi Akotanga Iho'', formed with men's and women's national teams, completed a 14 match tour of Europe in September and October 2010. The men's team included 22-test

All Black The New Zealand national rugby union team, commonly known as the All Blacks ( mi, Ōpango), represents New Zealand in men's international rugby union, which is considered the country's national sport. The team won the Rugby World Cup in 1987, ...

veteran

Buck Shelford Sir Wayne Thomas "Buck" Shelford (born 13 December 1957) is a former New Zealand rugby union footballer and coach who represented and captained New Zealand (the All Blacks) in the late 1980s. He is also credited with revitalising the performance ...

who led the team to a 57–10 test win against Kī-o-Rahi Dieppe Organisation, the French Kī-o-Rahi federation. Shelford's kī-o-rahi test jersey made him the first kī-o-rahi/rugby double international for NZ. The women's team coached by Andrea Cameron (Head of PE at Tikipunga High School) also won by 33–0. These were the first historic test matches between NZ and France.

Origins

Although former chief executive of the

Māori Language Commission The Māori Language Commission ( mi, Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori) is an autonomous Crown entity in New Zealand set up under the Māori Language Act 1987 with the following functions: # To initiate, develop, co-ordinate, review, advise upon, an ...

, Dr.

Patu Hohepa Sir Patrick Wahanga Hohepa (born 1936) is a New Zealand Māori language academic. In the 2022 Queen's Birthday and Platinum Jubilee Honours, he was appointed a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit The New Zealand Order of Me ...

, a noted Māori academic, was quoted as saying "We cannot track it in the traditional Maori world... at this present time it is a mystery." Nonetheless he found the idea (that this was a traditional game) "fabulously exciting". According to Henry Anderson, kaiwhakahaere (Māori sport co-ordinator) for Sport Northland, kī-o-rahi is a traditional Māori game that has been "handed down over the centuries". Harko Brown, a physical education teacher at

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, who was taught the game in the late 1970s on his

marae A ' (in New Zealand Māori, Cook Islands Māori, Tahitian), ' (in Tongan), ' (in Marquesan) or ' (in Samoan) is a communal or sacred place that serves religious and social purposes in Polynesian societies. In all these languages, the term a ...

in the south

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, described it as "an indigenous game imbued with

tikanga Māori Tikanga is a Māori concept incorporating practices and values from mātauranga Māori, Māori knowledge. Tikanga is translated into the English language with a wide range of meanings — culture, custom, ethic, etiquette, fashion, formali ...

with a very long history ... of a pre-European nature." References to the ancient forms of the game can be found in his book ''Nga Taonga Takaro''. It is not clear when the term 'kī-o-rahi' originated as a collective term for ancient ball games played around a tupu. It is said to be based on the legend of Rahitutakahina and the rescue of his wife, Tiarakurapakewai.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ki-O-Rahi Māori culture Māori sport Ball games Traditional football Māori words and phrases