Hula fire knife .. your “HOT” Polynesian baton twirler

The hula fire knife has different beginnings, one such Pacific island nation that may have created this art of a wielding flaming knife is Samoa. It has been told that a Samoan chief in the mid 1940’s came across on his travels a Hindu fire-eater as well as a young girl with a lit baton, this gave him the idea of maybe putting flames to this knife while twirling it, and with this the fire knife was created.

This tiny little island with its traditions and culture captured this fire dancing art form, which is usually done with a machete with both ends wrapped in some sort of flamable towelling with a fuel source to ignite the fire, leaving the middle part of the knife for the entertainer to hold and

“Hula Add-ons”

Siva Afi is the Samoan name for fire knife dancing, the tribal fire performers don’t just twirl this dangerous weapon that is lit up , they dance and even do acrobatic stunts to “WOW” the onlookers. There is a chance they may get their routine wrong and get burnt, “BUT” this does not happen to a large extent because of the hours of practise a fire dancer does.

There is a Samoan hula fire knife dance called the ‘Ailao” it is performed with the ‘Nifo Oti” the “tooth of death” dance, this hula action is very similar to the Tongan “Kailao” dance. The machete knife which is used in this movement, was fashioned with a hook on the ends, this gave the warriors a way of hooking their enemy’s body parts in battle.

With this weapon in hand they would dance in pre-battle frenzies to psyche each other into such a state to intimidate their adversary’s, and this continued after the battle and the hook on the end of the fire knife, "Well" it was also used to carry severed heads of the defeated, like a trophy holder.

In Samoan society it is not acceptable to perform the fire knife dance without an authentic fire knife the only difference would be that the fire knife blades are not sharpened, but blunt for safety. In parts of the commercial entertainment world, gone are the machete originals, hello to the aluminium and wooden lighter, faster and flashy flaming staffs.

Even though these new implements may not be authentic the shows are still flaming “HOT”, with the same amount of intensity and practise required to dance, toss and spin a hula fire knife.

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