Hell’s Basement Brewery in Alberta started marketing Huruhuru, a New Zealand craft ale, last year. The brewery picked the name because it understood the word meant ‘feather’ or ‘fur.’ But Te Hamua Nikora, a Māori living in New Zealand and well-known former TV personality, said that the word ‘huruhuru’ also has an altogether different meaning for the Kiwi indigenous community.

‘Yes I know huruhuru means feather, fur and even hair of the head,’ he wrote in an Facebook post on August 1. ‘I know this. But it is most commonly used as hair from a person’s privates.’

Nikora called out the Canadian brewery as well as a leather shop in Wellington, New Zealand, which also adopted the name ‘huruhuru.’ He said he had contacted both the store and the brewery informing them of their mistake and asked for non-Māori businesses to use their own language to promote their products.  ‘If you are selling leather, call it leather, don’t call it pubic hair unless you are selling pubic hair and don’t call beer pubic hair unless you make it with pubic hair,’ he said.