“Māori Boy Chic”: Artist Aroha Millar rebraids the rats tail narrative

Māori Visual Arts grad, Aroha Millar. Photo / Keelin Bell

When I hear ‘rat's tails’, I’m taken straight back to my marae. Watching my cuzzies run around barefoot on the grass, the skinny braids streaming behind them. The classic Māori boy hairstyle was never something I would have described as particularly beautiful. It was thought of as some skody trend.  

But after Māori artist and Massey grad Aroha Millar invited me into her studio and braided her knowledge and muka into my hair, I realise it’s much more than that.   

It’s a form of art.  

The small braid at the back of the head known as a rat's tail can be traced back to Polynesian roots, and became popular among Māori and Pasifika boys in the 80’s. For much of New Zealand, the style is seen as something far from artistic. The controversial style was banned at numerous primary schools, such as Sacred Heart School in Petone in 2009.  

But as Aroha leads me into her cozy studio in Toi Pōneke, she tells me a different story.  

“I didn’t do anything to make them beautiful, they just are beautiful to me.”  

She was recently part of a show at Enjoy Contemporary Art Gallery, where she says people could come in “for a ratty and have a cup of tea”. While it was never her goal to get rid of the stigma around rat's tails, she’s proud to have played a part in getting more rattys in Welly. 

Her studio feels like a true artist’s home, scattered with sunlight and taonga, decorated with messages of hope painted in red and black. We remove our shoes and sit on the soft couches, and I listen to her describe the beauty of the underappreciated style. 

“I think the only thing that makes it not beautiful is how people perceive it, and it’s usually based on the people wearing it. It definitely does have a stigma around it, but so does everything that Māori and Indigenous people decide to use to present themselves.” 

In tikanga Māori, one’s head is very sacred, and hair is much the same. In Māori culture, during a tangi, they will sometimes cut the deceased's hair and braid it in with their own. Hair is also thought to be crucial to provide spirit and strength when hapū, so women will often not cut their hair while pregnant until their child is born.  

The unreasonable hatred of rat's tails comes from a place of racial bias. It's just another form of identity expression Pakeha are confused by — and confusion leads to hate. 

“I don’t think there’s any difference between me wearing them and a Māori boy from Opōtiki wearing them — it’s just the different ways that people perceive us for it.” 

Aroha whakapapas from Ōpōtiki on the East Coast, where kids ride horses and rat's tails bounce against their backs. She is heavily inspired by the traditional accessories worn by her Māori whānau, “Wearing shells, wearing manu, they all come from looking at my cousins who just live in their Māori boy skux attire — and I love it.” 

Aroha studied Māori Visual Arts at Massey, where she learnt to strip muka, and how to miro and whatu — customary weaving techniques. Her work focuses largely on creating wearable adornments, using lots of natural resources such as muka and manu. Eventually when the muka becomes dirty, she carefully gives it back to the whenua, burying it in her garden.  

When I ask how her new practice of braiding rats tails begun, she smiles.  

“My mum my brother and I went home for a weekend, and on the ride home my brother turned around and asked me if I could braid the muka into his hair as a rat's tail,” Aroha recounts, eyes twinkling. She knew it was a fabulous idea.  

When Aroha began wearing rats tails herself, she wondered whether she would receive criticism for the controversial fashion. “The first time I wore them to work I was like ‘Oh god, am I gonna get bullied for this?’ But my Māori coworker came up to me and said ‘Is that muka? That's so cool!’” Now, Aroha embraces the traditional hairstyle, wearing it with pride.  

Twirling her own two braids through her hands, Aroha tells me about the intimate process of giving rats tails. “Asking your big sister to straighten it for you and getting someone to section it with a comb — I think it’s so soft.” 

Hearing this, I want to experience it myself.  

Sitting peacefully in the sunlight that warms her cozy studio, Aroha carefully weaves muka into my hair with gentle hands. Despite just meeting her, I feel an inexplicable sense of connection to her. I feel as though she was giving me not only the muka, but the knowledge of it.  

This feeling is known as taonga tuku iho — the philosophy of handing treasure down. Aroha creates all of her art pieces with it, “Every taonga I make, it should teach you something when you wear it.” 

And this taonga braided into my hair did teach me something: That’s rat's tails are not skody. They are beautiful.  

I leave Aroha's studio, but what stays with me is the newfound knowledge and appreciation for rat's tails. With simple threading of muka through my hair, she has gifted me knowledge of the whenua. I take it and wear it with pride.