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Watch These Students Perform a Powerful Haka Dance at a Teacher’s Funeral

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At the funeral for a New Zealand teacher Dawson Tamatea, who died in his sleep at age 55, students at Palmerston North Boys’ High School in Manawatu performed a haka, a traditional dance and war chant native to New Zealand’s Maori people. (The All Blacks rugby team can usually be seen doing the ancestral tribute before a match.)

The “entire school” performed the emotional tribute as the hearse arrived, according to a description of the video on YouTube. School rector David Bovey described the performance as “spine-tingling” in an interview with ONE News.

 

 

 

 

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Write to Olivia B. Waxman at olivia.waxman@time.com