Anjali Kumari, IILM College of Engineering and Technology
The credit for the discovery of Antarctica is typically given to the Europeans but according to new research that is published in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, the Polynesians discovered Antarctica over 1300 years ago. It is believed that they were among the first to sail through the Antarctic waters and it was they who possibly spotted the frozen continents. It is hardly a revelation to the indigenous Māori of New Zealand as Polynesians may have visited the southernmost continent, Antarctica so long ago. Thus, they can possibly be credited for the discovery of Antarctica.
The scientists agreed and mentioned in the study that the connection between the indigenous people and the Antarctic water is poorly documented and acknowledged in the research literature. But they added that the new paper is beginning to fill this gap. The ocean explorers during the age of exploration (the 1400s to 1600s) tried to find the Antarctic continent including the British explorer and navigator Captain James Cook but none of them benefited. If we go by the history books, it was the year 1820 when Antarctica was spotted for the first time. However, it is not clear who saw it. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, it could be a sealing captain from America or an Imperial Russian Navy officer. But on June 6, a new study that was published online stated that the Westerners were latecomers.
Around 1300-year-old history, the Polynesian chief Hui Te Rangiora along with his crew members voyaged through the Antarctic waters sailing aboard the Te Ivi O Atea vessel. The ship ventured a long way to the southern part and probably they were the first human beings to set their eyes on the waters of the Antarctic and perhaps the continent. The Māori showed up between 1200 and 1300 in New Zealand and if the early 600s date is right, the explorers of indigenous found the continent of Antarctica much before them. The ancestors of Māori lived in Polynesia during that time. The legends of indigenous made a note of a ‘dark place not seen by the sun’ and the ‘frozen sea’. The Polynesian chief named this part of the Southern Ocean as Tai-uka-a-pia in which ‘Ta’i means ‘sea’, ‘uka’ means ‘ice’ and ‘a-pia’ means ‘like the arrowroot’, translating it to “sea foaming like arrowroot”, in which he compared the iceberg to powdered white arrowroot.
Given the extensive maritime history of the Polynesians, the fact that they travelled so far to the southern part and even spotted the waters of the Antarctic should not come as very surprising. But amidst the Eurocentric view of science and history, the achievements and discoveries of other cultures get discounted, unfortunately. Today the scientists of Māori are researching the continent of Antarctica and the cultural symbols can be found near the research stations. However, there is still a lot of work to be done in understanding the discovery of Antarctica, how “Antarctica” features in the lives, and futures of indigenous people and other communities that are underrepresented.
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References:
- Wehi, P. M., Scott, N. J., Beckwith, J., Rodgers, R. P., Gillies, T., Van Uitregt, V., & Watene, K. (2021). A short scan of Māori journeys to Antarctica. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/03036758.2021.1917633
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