These sites continue to thrive in 2026 and include claims that the moon\u2019s phases affect everything from energy levels and mental health to crop yields.2<\/a>\u00a0None of this is supported by controlled studies or established principles of physics. These claims continue to flourish in part because politicians and mainstream media editors appear reluctant to challenge them for fear of being labeled as culturally insensitive or racist. The result has been a proliferation of unsupported claims presented as scientific fact.<\/p>\n Public funding has flowed freely for a series of questionable projects. Recently, the government spent NZ$1.2 million to study the possible effects of lunar phases on health,3<\/a>\u00a0and NZ$400,000 on how the lunar calendar may influence birthing outcomes.4<\/a>\u00a0These projects form part of a broader pattern of government agencies funding attempts to test or validate claims rooted in M\u0101ori knowledge that either lack plausible biological mechanisms or have yet to produce convincing empirical support. This marks a pattern where the scientific bar is quietly lowered when cultural sentiment is involved.<\/p>\n Playing Whale Songs to Trees<\/p>\n In recent years the government has funded other indigenous studies of questionable scientific value. In one project researchers set out to heal the country\u2019s iconic kauri trees that have been ravaged by dieback disease. Their novel solution included playing audio recordings of whale songs to affected trees, along with\u00a0karakias\u00a0(ritual prayers) and indigenous music. The study cost NZ$521,000.5<\/a> The rationale? In M\u0101ori lore, the\u00a0paraoa\u00a0(or sperm whale) and the kauri tree were ancestral siblings, and whale products have traditionally been used for their healing properties.6<\/a><\/p>\n To justify this, researchers pointed to a study that showed that playing healthy coral reef sounds near degraded coral ecosystems attracted fish and sped up recovery.7<\/a>\u00a0Applying this concept to land-dwelling plants is a false equivalence.8<\/a>\u00a0The kauri tree researchers drew on the M\u0101ori notion of\u00a0ihirangaranga: \u201cancestral energies\u201d and sound vibrations that are believed to promote healing.9<\/a> However, land-bound kauri trees lack the physiological mechanisms to process and respond to sound waves in the same manner.<\/p>\n The Curious Chemistry of Whale Balm\u00a0<\/p>\n Equally problematic was a parallel NZ$1.1 million study which used a topical balm that included pulverized whale bones and oil and a blend of secret ingredients. When the final report failed to show measurable success, researchers pivoted away from quantitative data to subjective, observational anecdotes. Reports of \u201cbark regrowth\u201d and \u201creduced trunk leakage\u201d are common in tree-healing trials including those using inert (chemically inactive) treatments, as trees can naturally wall off an infection over time. A more scientifically robust assessment would have required setting up a control group consisting of untreated, diseased kauri trees that would be monitored under identical conditions to determine the rate of natural recovery. Their failure to list the ingredients in the balm, and in a spray that was applied to roots, meant that other researchers could not replicate the study\u2014undercutting a foundation of modern science. Even if the treatment had proved effective, implementation on a meaningful scale was always going to be impractical as it relied on a steady stream of whale carcasses!<\/p>\n The result has been a proliferation of unsupported claims presented as scientific fact.\u00a0<\/p>\n In defending the \u201cwhale potion\u201d study, the CEO of the agency overseeing the experiment suggested that sperm whales historically used to bounce their sonar off coastal kauri trees to avoid stranding, and that whales might still communicate \u201cthrough the sea floor to shoreline kauri roots.\u201d10<\/a>\u00a0This is a textbook example of motivated reasoning cloaked in scientific language.11<\/a>\u00a0When viewed individually, each project could be dismissed as an isolated lapse in scientific judgment. But collectively they reveal a pattern: public funding is being increasingly directed toward testing propositions whose principal justification is cultural rather than empirical.<\/p>\n The Polynesian \u201cDiscovery\u201d of Antarctica\u00a0<\/p>\n New Zealand holds the distinction of being the first country to establish a national public holiday based on an Indigenous astronomical calendar.\u00a0Matariki\u00a0(\u201ceyes of the chief or god\u201d) celebrates the annual pre-dawn rising of the Pleiades star cluster as seen from New Zealand, which marks the start of the M\u0101ori New Year. In Western astronomy, it is known as the Pleiades. To commemorate this year\u2019s holiday on July 10th, a government-funded documentary was released, which follows two M\u0101ori scholars on their journey to Antarctica. The documentary received NZ$400,000 in public funding.12<\/a><\/p>\n A promotional blurb put out by government-funded agency, Antarctica New Zealand, which hosted the pair on their trip, identifies them as \u201castronomers\u201d (neither holds formal credentials in the field) and states that their genealogies \u201ccan be traced directly to Polynesian Antarctic explorers Tamarereti and Hui te Rangiora.\u201d13<\/a>\u00a0The public premiere of the film mentioned the belief that M\u0101ori ancestors once reached Antarctica.14<\/a><\/p>\n The appearance of this claim revived public discussion as to whether Polynesian ancestors reached the frozen continent in the 7th century, which has been the subject of public controversy in recent years. Despite detailed scholarly rebuttals that address the historical, archaeological, linguistic, and navigational evidence, the Ministry of Education continues to promote the claim as an open question.15<\/a><\/p>\n It has even published a story of the possible journey in its influential\u00a0School Journal, which is used to support the curriculum.16<\/a>\u00a0While principal objections have been addressed repeatedly in the scholarly literature, educational resources continue to portray the issue as though the evidence were evenly balanced.<\/p>\n On June 6, 2021, the\u00a0Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand\u00a0published an article that made the dramatic claim that Polynesians likely visited Antarctica in the seventh century, over a thousand years before Europeans.17<\/a>\u00a0It caused a global sensation and was quickly picked up by news outlets around the world, from\u00a0The Guardian\u00a0to\u00a0The New York Times.18<\/a>\u00a0The New Zealand Herald\u00a0proclaimed: \u201cPolynesians First to Discover Antarctica Not News to M\u0101ori,\u201d19<\/a>\u00a0while the headline in\u00a0The Press\u00a0of Christchurch read: \u201cAntarctica: The Maori Connection.\u201d20<\/a><\/p>\n In reporting on the story, a writer for\u00a0Smithsonian\u00a0magazine noted that the research drew \u201con oral histories and other traditional records often ignored by Western scholars.\u201d It quotes lead author Priscilla Wehi, who said: \u201cWhen you put it together, it\u2019s really clear, there\u2019s a very long history of connection to Antarctica.\u201d21<\/a>\u00a0She told\u00a0Radio New Zealand\u00a0that an exciting part of the research was that \u201cit shows how oral tradition can really be considered as a reliable source of evidence.\u201d22<\/a>\u00a0The difficulty is that her claims were based on oral narratives that scholars, including M\u0101ori researchers, have warned should not be interpreted literally as historical voyage records.<\/p>\n The claims of Antarctic exploration draw on Rarotongan oral traditions, which hold cultural value but need to be interpreted carefully when used as historical evidence. Rarotonga is the largest and most populated island in the Cook Island chain in the South Pacific. The story was translated by ethnographer Stephenson Smith (1840\u20131922). In 1954, the manuscript was rebuked by revered M\u0101ori anthropologist Sir Peter Buck, who characterized Smith\u2019s approach as na\u00efve, and noted that the manuscript was so laden with colonial influences that its meaning had been distorted and could not be taken as a literal historical record.23<\/a><\/p>\n When viewed individually, each project could be dismissed as an isolated lapse in scientific judgment.<\/p>\n According to the story, the Polynesian voyager Hui Te Rangiora and his crew ventured into Antarctic waters during the seventh century and \u201cwere likely the first humans to set eyes on Antarctic waters and perhaps the continent.\u201d24<\/a>\u00a0Here is the passage in question:<\/p>\n \u2026 the rocks that grow out of the sea, in the space beyond Rapa; the monstrous seas; the female that dwells in those mountainous waves, whose tresses wave about in the water and on the surface of the sea; and the frozen sea of pia, with the deceitful animal of the sea who dives to great depths\u2014a foggy, misty, and dark place not seen by the sun. Other things are like rocks, whose summits pierce the skies, they are completely bare and without vegetation on them.25<\/a><\/p>\n The key words from the text are \u201ctai-uka-a-pia\u201d with \u201ctai-uka\u201d meaning frozen sea and \u201cpia\u201d\u2014a reference to the white flesh of the arrowroot. The literal translation then is \u201cfrozen sea of white.\u201d Wehi and her team interpreted this as a reference to Antarctic ice.<\/p>\n An Old Claim Suddenly Grows Wings\u00a0<\/p>\n Three months after Wehi\u2019s publication, a team of researchers, including M\u0101ori scholars, challenged the claims of Antarctic contact in a rebuttal published in the same Royal Society journal. Led by distinguished archaeologist Atholl Anderson, they noted Buck\u2019s longstanding rejection of this translation.26<\/a>\u00a0They pointed out that frothy white caps are a common sight in the ocean south of New Zealand, but well north of Antarctica, and metaphorical descriptions of the white-capped ocean are common in Polynesian voyaging traditions and clearly do not refer to ice or snow.27<\/a><\/p>\n Anderson and his team give several reasons why such a voyage or voyages\u20145,000 km (3,100 miles) one-way just to reach the Antarctic Circle from Rarotonga\u2014were beyond the Polynesian capabilities. The southernmost archaeological evidence of prehistoric Polynesian landfall is Enderby Island. At 51 degrees south latitude, it is 2,000 km (1,240 miles) from Antarctica. Any voyagers travelling below this boundary would have faced insurmountable challenges, including high winds, large waves, and freezing temperatures. The circumpolar westerly winds (the \u201cRoaring Forties\u201d and \u201cFurious Fifties\u201d) would have wreaked havoc as their sails were woven from pandanus leaves and \u201cnotoriously fragile.\u201d They write that voyaging through the circumpolar westerlies would have been perilous and placed them at great risk a of a \u201cbreaking up, swamping or overturning.\u201d28<\/a>\u00a0There was also a lack of wood and plant fibre for the necessary boat repairs.29<\/a><\/p>\n Prior to the 1820s, M\u0101ori sailing vessels \u201chad no windward capacity\u201d and were \u201cvulnerable to catastrophic failure in strong winds.\u201d30<\/a>\u00a0A 2025 study led by Dr. Thomas Leppard of the International Archaeological Research Institute reached the same conclusion, noting that any such trips would have been \u201cfoolhardy\u201d and \u201csuicidal.\u201d31<\/a>\u00a0The physical constraints alone make the claim untenable.\u00a0<\/p>\n Treating the Legend Literally\u00a0<\/p>\n Wehi and her team also engage in selective omission to give the myth more credence than it deserves. They left out fantastical elements of the story in their report, for according to the narrative, \u201cthe whole of the canoe [used by Hui Te Rangiora] was built of men\u2019s bones.\u201d This information was later downplayed by Smith and is absent from most subsequent retellings. Referring to a canoe made of bones suggests a mythic or legendary origin story rather than a historical voyage.32<\/a><\/p>\n M\u0101ori scholar Tipene O\u2019Regan has expressed concern over the need to conduct serious research into indigenous history in New Zealand, which sometimes involves fantasy and mysticism, being funded by the government. He notes that the \u201cM\u0101ori ancestors discovered Antarctica\u201d saga involved \u201cthose who, without any real historical analysis or content, have managed to give new birth to the idea that M\u0101ori discovered Antarctica.\u201d33<\/a><\/p>\n When Evidence and Politics Collide\u00a0<\/p>\n Following the sensational headlines about M\u0101ori ancestors discovering the frozen continent, the rebuttal that appeared three months later received only a fraction of the media attention. Even today, the original article has received over 21,000 views online, while the rebuttal has had less than 7 percent of the viewership (1,364).34<\/a>\u00a0Three of the rebuttal authors would later write that their attempt to challenge the claims of Wehi was initially met with resistance by the Royal Society itself, which struck them as being inconsistent with \u201cthe principle of open debate, and the society\u2019s stated aim of advancing and promoting the pursuit of knowledge.\u201d They wrote that \u201conly our dogged determination \u2026 led to the eventual publication.\u201d35<\/a><\/p>\n This marks a pattern where the scientific bar is quietly lowered when cultural sentiment is involved.\u00a0<\/p>\n The original article by Wehi was essentially a rehashing of an old story and not a newly uncovered revelation, yet just two months after the rebuttal, the Royal Society rewarded Wehi and Otago University with a $660,000 grant to examine Antarctic narratives in relation to M\u0101ori knowledge titled: \u201cKaitiakitanga [Guardianship] and Antarctic narratives.\u201d36<\/a>\u00a0In response, Anderson and his colleagues asked: \u201cWhat can we conclude from this? Above all else, that \u2026 the state continues to invest significant amounts of taxpayer money into M\u0101ori-themed scholarship of questionable quality.\u201d37<\/a>\u00a0This remains true today.<\/p>\n Claims of pre-European Antarctic discovery by Polynesians has also appeared in the journal\u00a0Nature Ecology and Evolution, which included a timeline of the supposed Polynesian discovery of the frozen continent. \u201cCirca 650 AD Hui Te Rangiora voyages south from Rarotonga in the\u00a0waka Te Ivi o Ateaand encounters a vast ice landscape, naming it\u00a0Te tai-ukaa-pia.\u201d38<\/a>\u00a0This led American biologist Jerry Coyne to ask: \u201cDoesn\u2019t this journal do fact-checking, or do they accept all dubious claims from a group if it\u2019s \u2018minoritized\u2019? They at least should say \u2018claimed\u00a0timeline.\u2019\u201d39<\/a><\/p>\n Coyne\u2019s criticism illustrates a broader concern: whether claims associated with indigenous knowledge are sometimes subjected to less critical scrutiny than comparable historical or scientific claims. His question captures the core issue: the danger of identity politics overriding basic evidential standards in peer review. It is a phenomenon skeptics know well: the suspension critical scrutiny in the face of cultural deference.<\/p>\n The debate over the Polynesian discovery of Antarctica raises a broader question: should cultural traditions be allowed to influence the standards by which historical and scientific claims are evaluated? When this occurs, it risks weakening public trust in both science, and the institutions charged with defending it. It is essential that evidence should be assessed using unwavering standards regardless of the cultural, political, or ideological origin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How a debunked M\u0101ori voyage to Antarctica, along with other indigenous folklore, became part of the New Zealand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[79],"class_list":["post-813482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Tahurangi-New-Zealand-Curriculum-webpage-screenshot.webp\")
Figure 1. The Education Ministry\u2019s 2026 curriculum page on the Antarctica narrative.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/New-Zealand-School-Journal-depiction-Polynesian-voyager-Hui-Te-Rangiora-and-crew-reaching-Antarctica.webp\")
Figure 2. New Zealand\u00a0School Journal\u00a0depiction of Polynesian voyager Hui Te Rangiora and his crew reaching Antarctica.On Thin Ice\u00a0<\/p>\n