Ui-te-Rangiora

Ui-te-Rangiora is believed to have been a 7th-century AD Polynesian navigator from the island of Rarotonga. According to Māori legend, Ui-te-Rangiora sailed south and encountered ice floes and icebergs in the Southern Ocean. He called this area of southern ocean Tai-uka-a-pia ("sea foaming like arrowroot") due to the ice floes being similar to arrowroot powder (referring to Tacca leontopetaloides, Polynesian arrowroot).[1] It is also claimed by some that Ui-te-Rangiora reached the Ross Ice Shelf, although he did not land on it.

Ice floes in the Southern Ocean

Powdered pia (Polynesian arrowroot), to which the ice floes were compared.

Authenticity

Tongan canoes, with sails and cabins, and two Tongan men paddling a smaller canoe from "Boats of the Friendly Isles" a record of Cook's visit to Tonga, 1773-4

The veracity of Ui-te-Rangiora reaching Antarctic waters has been questioned.[2] It has been claimed that in 1886 Lapita pottery shards were discovered on the Antipodes Islands, indicating that Polynesians did reach that far south.[3]

Enderby Island, considerably south of Antipodes in the Auckland group, has been found to have proof of 13th- or 14th-century Māori use.[4]

Possible discovery of Antarctica

Very little is known about Ui-te-Rangiora, or about early Polynesia for that matter, but it is told in Māori legends[5] that, around the year 650, Ui-te-Rangiora led a fleet of Waka tīwai southwards in the Southern Ocean until they reached "rocks that grow out of the sea, in the space beyond Rapa".[1]

References

1. Smith, Stephenson Percy (1899). Hawaiki: the whence of the Maori, being an introduction to Rarotongan history: Part III. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, Volume 8. pp. 10–11. Retrieved 21 November 2019.
2. Kieran Mulvaney, At the Ends of the Earth: A History of the Polar Regions
3. Te Ao Hou The Maori Magazine, no. 59 (June 1967), p. 43
4. Anderson, Atholl. "Subpolar settlement in South Polynesia". Antiquity Magazine. Antiquity Publications. Retrieved 17 November 2018.
5. "Antarctica" Encyclopædia Britannica