Ui-te-Rangiora is believed to have been a 7th Century Māori navigator from the island Rarotonga, according to Māori legend. Rangiora is believed to have encountered the Ross Ice Shelf.
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The existence of Rangiora is in debate, most modern historians dismiss him as either simply legend. However many of the Cook Islands Māori population accept the his existence as fact.[1]
Very little is known about Rangiora or even most of early Polynesia for that matter, but it is told, by Māori legends,[2] that around the year 650, Ui-te-Rangiora lead a fleet of Waka Tīwai's south until they reached, according to legend, "a place of bitter cold where rock-like structures rose from a solid sea",[3] The brief description appears to match the Ross Ice Shelf or possibly the Antarctic mainland,[4] but may just be a description of icebergs and Pack Ice found in the Southern Ocean.[5]
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