"Let the world see the haka isn't just for rugby games, graduations, weddings and funerals. Let them get a glimpse of its original intention."

New Zealand’s parliament was briefly suspended on Thursday after Maori members staged a haka to disrupt the vote on a contentious bill that would reinterpret a 184-year-old treaty between the British and Indigenous Maori.

Hundreds of people on Monday set out on a nine-day march to New Zealand's capital of Wellington in protest over legislation that would reinterpret a treaty at the heart of race relations in the Pacific country.