On 25 August 2012, Burnham Military Camp near Christchurch became the stage for an extraordinary farewell. Soldiers from the 2nd/1st Battalion, Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment, gathered to perform their unit haka in honour of three fallen comrades. Corporal Luke Tamatea, Lance Corporal Jacinda Baker, and Private Richard Harris had died in an incident involving an explosive device six days earlier while deployed in Afghanistan. Their return called for a ceremony rooted in deep cultural tradition.
The combined military memorial marked a collective send-off before the families held their separate services. As the procession entered the parade ground, the battalion surged into rhythm ahead of their comrades’ final departure through the carved gateway known as the waharoa. Rows of soldiers chanted and stamped in unison, their voices rising across the base. Army spokesman Major John Gordon later characterised the tribute as an outpouring of emotion, capturing how vocal unison and physical energy can articulate grief far beyond standard ceremonial formality.
Outside New Zealand, international audiences mostly recognise the haka as the pre-match challenge performed by sports teams like the All Blacks. In Māori tradition, however, group performance and chanting serve a much wider spectrum of human experiences. Cultural experts emphasise that haka is not solely a war dance. It is equally a language of welcome, praise, and mourning, making it a natural choice for soldiers saying a final goodbye to friends who served alongside them.
The three soldiers represented distinct paths through the military. Tamatea had served on multiple international missions, Baker was an award-winning Army medic, and Harris had deployed to Timor-Leste early in his career. Performing a haka during military mourning also had an established precedent within the unit. Members of the same 2nd/1st Battalion had delivered a similar tribute at Burnham in 2001, anchoring this performance within an ongoing custom of battalion brotherhood and respect. Demonstrating how deeply the custom of memorial haka extends across New Zealand communities, students from Palmerston North Boys’ High School assembled en masse to perform their school haka at a teacher’s funeral service. See video below.
Shared online by the New Zealand Defence Force, the recording quickly resonated with viewers worldwide and had gathered over nine million views by 11 November 2026. The scene travelled through international news coverage because of its raw, visceral honesty. Rather than the hushed tones typical of Western memorial services, this performance channelled anguish into disciplined sound and thunderous movement, allowing viewers everywhere to feel the weight of the soldiers’ shared loss.
The video has since taken on a lasting place in discussions of military remembrance. Beyond the online footage, the soldiers’ memory lives on through tributes such as a medical ward in Iraq named after Baker in 2015. More than a decade later, the recording stands out not as casual viral content, but as an enduring document of grief, solidarity, and the transformative power of cultural expression.