Ui-te-Rangiora

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This article is about the 7th Century Polynesian Explorer. For the plant commonly called "Rangiora", see Brachyglottis repanda. For town in North Canterbury, see Rangiora.

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

Authenticity

The veracity of 'Ui-te-rangiora reaching Antarctic waters has been questioned.^[2] In 1886 lapita pottery shards were discovered on the Antipodes Islands indicating that Polynesians did extend that far south.^[3]

Possible discovery of Antarctica

Very little is known about Rangiora, or about early Polynesia for that matter, but it is told in Māori legends,^[4] that, around the year 650, Ui-te-Rangiora led a fleet of Waka Tīwais southwards in the Southern Ocean until they reached "rocks that grow out of the sea, in the space beyond Rapa".^[5] This may be a description of sea ice and icebergs.

References

↑ Smith, Stephenson Percy (1898). Hawaiki: the whence of the Maori: with a sketch of Polynesian history, being an introd. to the native history of Rarotonga. Whitcombe & Tombs. pp. 90–91. Retrieved 2013-01-19.
↑ Kieran Mulvaney, At the Ends of the Earth: A History Of The Polar Regions
↑ Te Ao Hou The Maori Magazine, no. 59 (June 1967), p. 43
↑ "Antarctica" Encyclopedia Britannica
↑ Smith p. 90

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Name	Ui-te-Rangiora
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Short description	Maori navigator
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