New Zealanders perform haka dance at Menin Gate

This week’s Last Post ceremonies in Ypres were particularly significant: Not only did they include the unveiling of the Menin Gate Lions – returned to their original home from Australia – but a group of New Zealanders from the county’s armed forces commemorated Anzac Day with an impressive haka dance.

A Last Post ceremony is held every evening at the Menin Gate – through which forces passed on their way to the front during the First World War. The ceremony include bands and the laying of wreaths.

Every year on 25 April, representatives of New Zealand and Australian forces mark the losses of their troops in the battles of the First World War. The traditional haka dance of the native Maori people followed the Last Post ceremony that evening and involved military staff performing the war dance that was meant to intimidate the enemy.

Australia suffered an estimated 62,000 casualties in the First World War, and New Zealand up to 18,000. The two nations commemorate the war together on Anzac Day, the anniversary of their joint mission at Gallipoli. The commemoration always includes a ceremony at the Menin Gate.

Also this week, the two stone lions originally placed under the Menin Gate were unveiled, having been returned to Belgium by Australia as part of the centenary of the First World War. The Menin Gate lions were gifted to Australia by the Belgian government in 1936 as a mark of respect for the lives lost in a conflict.

Since that time, they have stood outside the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. They are now back at the Menin Gate temporarily. A small exhibition about the lions is running concurrently in Ypres’ In Flanders Fields museum.

See a video of the haka dance on De Standaard.