GoKawiilScholars debate whether Polynesian legend of Ui-te-Rangiora describes an Antarctic voyage
Ui-te-Rangiora is a legendary Polynesian navigator from Rarotongan oral tradition said to have sailed south aboard the vessel Te Ivi o Atea and reached a frozen, foggy region called Tai-uka-a-pia. A 19th-century reading by Stephenson Percy Smith interpreted this as a description of Antarctic ice floes, leading some to credit the navigator with discovering Antarctica centuries before European explorers.