Tika Tonu haka lyrics, meaning and actions

The Tika Tonu haka lyrics speak to a son: be straight, be true, and, in the best-known reading, the strength to get through your trouble is already inside you. It is a Ngāti Kahungunu haka from Heretaunga, Hawke’s Bay, more than a century old, and its title line is Tika tonu atu ki a koe, e tama ‘be right, straight on, to you, son’, which NZ Folk Song renders “Be true to yourself, my son!” Te Aka Māori Dictionary glosses tika as correct, true, upright, right, just and also straight, direct, and tonu as still, continuously or, after a word, very, indeed, right. Below are the full words with a word-for-word meaning of every line, the three published accounts of who composed it, the actions the words themselves call for, the occasions it is performed at, and how to treat it if it is not your iwi’s haka.

Updated 22 October 2026 · 10 min read

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The words of Tika Tonu

Tika Tonu is a haka of Ngāti Kahungunu. Who composed it is told three ways (see below), but every account places it in Heretaunga between 1899 and about 1915. Credit it to Ngāti Kahungunu when you perform it.

These are the words exactly as NZ Folk Song prints them, with its spellings; the lines it sets in bold for the leader, the kaea, are marked Leader, and everyone else answers:

Leader: Ki aro
Kia whakaronga,
kia mau!
Hi !
Leader: Ringaringa e torōna
kei waho hoki mai!
Kss Kss
Leader: Tika tonu!
U - e!
Leader: Tika tonu!
U... e!
Tika tonu atu ki a koe,
e tama
Hiki nei koe aku whakaaro,
pakia!
He hiki aha to hiki?
He hiki roa to hiki?
I a ha hā!

E tama, te uaua ana
E tama, te mārō
Roa ina hoki ra
Te tohe o te uaua na
E tāu nei.
Āna! Āna! Āna!
Aue... Hī!

Versions differ slightly, as they do with any haka passed on by performance. The text the University of Waikato’s Tautoko files held, which NZ Folk Song mirrors, opens straight at Tika tonu, asks He hiki aha tō hiki twice instead of following it with He hiki roa, and has auau where NZ Folk Song has uaua. Te Aka spells the call to listen whakarongo, and the more usual form of the line before last is e tau nei. That Waikato file also had a second, unrelated chant, E ko te tui, joined on after it; NZ Folk Song points out that this is not a longer Tika Tonu but a separate chant, probably from the 1970s.

Tika Tonu line by line

The middle column gives each word’s meaning from Te Aka Māori Dictionary. The last column is what the line is taken to mean, with NZ Folk Song’s English where it is quoted.

Māori	Word for word (Te Aka)	What it means
Kia whakarongo, kia mau!	kia (let it be) + whakarongo (to listen, obey); mau (be fixed, firm, hold firm)	The leader’s call to attention: “Listen up, take your stance!” (NZ Folk Song)
Ringaringa e torona	ringaringa (hand, arm) + torona, passive of toro (to stretch forth, stretch out, extend)	Arms stretched out (“Arms outstretched”, NZ Folk Song)
kei waho hoki mai!	kei waho (at the outside, out) + hoki mai (come back)	out, and back again (“out and back!”)
Tika tonu! … ū	tika (right, true; straight) + tonu (still; indeed, right); ū (to be firm, fixed, resolute)	Stand straight and true; the answer is a drawn-out “yes, firm”
Tika tonu atu ki a koe, e tama	atu (onwards, away) + ki a koe (to you) + e tama (son, boy: a term of address)	“Be true to yourself, my son!” (NZ Folk Song)
Hiki nei koe aku whakaaro, pākia!	hiki (to lift up, raise, carry) + aku whakaaro (my thoughts); pākia (be slapped, clapped)	You have stirred up my thoughts (“You have raised my concerns”), then the call to slap
He hiki aha tō hiki?	a lifting of what, your lifting?	“What’s this problem you carry?” (NZ Folk Song)
He hiki roa tō hiki?	roa (long): a long lifting, your lifting?	“How long have you carried it for?” (NZ Folk Song)
I a ha hā!	a chanted cry, no dictionary words	NZ Folk Song reads it as “Have you got that? Right, let’s go on.”
E tama, te uaua ana	e tama (son) + uaua (difficulty, trouble; hard) + ana (indeed)	Son, the hardship
E tama, te mārō	mārō (stiff, hard, unyielding, determined, firm)	Son, the stubbornness of it
Roa inā hoki rā	roa (long) + inā hoki (see here, because)	for it is long
Te tohe o te uaua	tohe (to persist, persevere; persistence) + o te uaua (of the difficulty)	the persistence of the struggle
e tau nei	tau (to land, settle, come to rest) + nei (here)	that has settled here; NZ Folk Song gives the last lines as “the answer to the problem is here inside you”
Āna! Āna! Āna! Aue… Hī!	exclamations	“Indeed! Indeed! Indeed! Yes, indeed!” (NZ Folk Song)

The second verse is where readers part ways, because the words are compressed and uaua, mārō and tohe can each name the trouble or the strength to meet it. Te Aka gives mārō both as unyielding and as determined, firm, and tohe both as obstinacy and as perseverance. NZ Folk Song reads the verse as the father telling his son that however hard and unyielding the problem seems, the answer is already inside him; its notes call the haka’s message one “of challenge, struggle, perseverance and achievement”.

What “tika tonu” means

Tika is one of the most used words in Māori. Te Aka’s first sense is to be correct, true, upright, right, just, fair, accurate, appropriate, lawful, proper, valid; its second is to be straight, direct, keep on a direct course. Tonu follows the word it applies to and either marks something as continuing, still, continuously, or intensifies it, very, indeed, right, just, really. So tika tonu is “right, still right”, or “truly straight”: the published translations take both roads. NZ Folk Song renders the leader’s call “What is right is always right!”, and Bayden Barber, chair of Ngāti Kahungunu, quoting the haka to a select committee in 2025, glossed it “be true, be right” and the answering ū as “uphold it, stand fast, hold it tight”.

In the same speech Barber paired tika with pono, which Te Aka glosses true, valid, honest, genuine, sincere: “To be tika, be pono.” That is the point of the haka: be straight with yourself, and keep on that line.

Who composed Tika Tonu: where the accounts differ

Every account agrees that Tika Tonu belongs to Ngāti Kahungunu of Heretaunga and is more than a century old. They name three different men, and none of the sources rules out the others.

Account	Composer	When and why
Taanga Tomoana of Ngāti Kahungunu, RNZ broadcasts of 1972 and 1977 (Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision catalogue)	Pene (Peni) Te Uamairangi, an uncle of Paraire Tomoana	Composed in 1899. The 1972 summary adds that, by the accounts, Pene composed it for a gathering in the South Island during the 1901 visit of the Duke of Cornwall and his wife. Both summaries name Waimarama Pūhara as an expert in weaponry, not as the composer.
Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (Angela Ballara and Ngatai Huata, 1996)	Paraire Hēnare Tomoana, composer of Pōkarekare Ana (died 1946)	Lists “the haka ‘Tika tonu’” among his well-known songs; gives no date.
NZ Folk Song (“as far as is known”), followed by Te Ao Māori News (2019)	Waimarama Pūhara, a chief of central Hawke’s Bay, born at Pakipaki about 1875	About 1914, as a message to his son Moana, then at St Patrick’s College, Silverstream, whom his father could see was struggling.

The story most often told with the haka is the third: a father who could see his teenage son carrying something and composed a haka to tell him to face it. NZ Folk Song adds that Moana married in January 1922 and died only five months later. Paraire Tomoana’s life and his most famous song are in Pōkarekare Ana line by line.

The actions of Tika Tonu

No published, step-by-step guide to the actions from a reputable source was found, and every kapa teaches its own, so this page describes only what the words themselves tell the performers to do:

Take the stance. The leader calls kia whakarongo, kia mau ‘listen, hold firm’; NZ Folk Song translates it “Listen up, take your stance!”
Arms out and back. Ringaringa e torona, kei waho hoki mai ‘arms stretched out, out and back’: the arms reach out and return. Te Aka’s toro is to stretch forth, stretch out, extend.
The hiss. NZ Folk Song prints a sharp Kss Kss after it, and the Waikato text ends the verse with Ana kss three times.
The slap. Pākia is the passive of paki, to be slapped, patted, clapped, and comes at the end of the line about raised thoughts.
The call and answer. The leader’s Tika tonu! is answered twice by a long U… e! from everyone before the group takes up the words together.

The rest, from the stamping to the facial expressions, follows the general language of haka described in kapa haka explained. The way to learn the exact actions is from the people who perform it: a school or workplace kapa, or a recording that its performers have put out themselves.

When Tika Tonu is performed

Haka are not only for war or sport. Te Ara quotes the haka expert Tīmoti Kāretu, of Ngāi Tūhoe and Ngāti Kahungunu, that a haka lets its composer, among other things, “sing someone’s praises, … pay his respects to the dead, to honour his ancestors, to teach his traditions to the succeeding generations.” Tika Tonu does several of those at once, and the published record shows it at all of these:

21st birthdays and graduations. NZ Folk Song names both as events where it is often used, because its message suits a young person crossing into adulthood.
Tangihanga and memorials. NZ Folk Song says it is used at tangi to honour those who guided young people through difficult times. In October 2021 players of both Taranaki and Manawatū performed it, led by Nehe Milner-Skudder, in tribute to the rugby player Sean Wainui (RNZ). After the Christchurch mosque attacks in March 2019, Te Ao Māori News singled it out among the haka performed across the country, and the composer Te Kahautu Maxwell called it “appropriate for us as Aotearoa”: “these are traumatic times, these are times of trouble.”
Schools. It has been taught in schools for decades: Hawke’s Bay Museum holds a 1993 photograph of Wycliffe Intermediate performing it, and a school told RNZ in 2015 it used Tika Tonu as its haka until its students wrote their own.
Gatherings and hui. Ngā Taonga holds a 1947 recording of it at the opening of the Uepōhatu war memorial hall, and Ngāti Kahungunu’s chair quoted it to a parliamentary select committee in 2025.

A wedding, a farewell or a retiring teacher?

People often look for a haka for a wedding, a funeral or a retiring teacher, and Tika Tonu is one of the haka most people in a school or workplace already know. Searches of the published record found it at the occasions above, but no reputable account of it as a wedding or retirement custom, so this page does not claim one. Weigh the words: they are a father telling a struggling son to stand straight, which is why they suit a 21st, a graduation or a farewell to someone who guided young people. Whoever is being honoured, ask the family or the people hosting before you perform any haka, and at a tangihanga follow the tikanga ‘customs’ of the marae: condolences in Māori explains what visitors do and say.

Performing a haka you did not grow up with

Tika Tonu is taught far beyond Hawke’s Bay, and Te Kahautu Maxwell said of its performances in 2019 that they were done “with the best intention by all parties”. Intention shows in a few things:

Credit it. Say it is a haka of Ngāti Kahungunu. In Māori thinking a composition is a taonga of the composer’s iwi, as Ngāti Toa’s statement in the Haka Ka Mate Attribution Act puts it of their own haka; see the Ka Mate guide.
Know what you are saying. Te Ara says haka draws on the performers’ spirits as well as their thoughts, and the mauri runs through every variant. Learn the meaning of each line first; the table above is a start.
Learn it from people, not only from a screen. If anyone in your school, workplace or community leads kapa haka, ask them to teach it and to say whether the occasion suits it.
Ask the hosts. At someone else’s marae or tangihanga, the host whānau decide what is performed. Asking first is never wrong.

Going further

Tika Tonu sits beside the haka most people know first, Ka Mate, and the All Blacks’ Kapa o Pango. Most of its words, among them tika, tonu, tama, whakaaro and uaua, are everyday Māori, and our own free te reo Māori course teaches them, with the grammar of kia and e tama, one lesson a day.