Recently there's been a lot of sites (for example, the Smithsonian magazine here, which has this great quote: “It is wholly unsurprising that a human community adept at seafaring and living close to the Antarctic continent might have encountered it centuries prior to European voyages to the same area,”) talking about the recently published report concerning early Māori expeditions and knowledge of Antarctica.
However, the authors, in their paper, only briefly talk about "grey literature" and oral histories to establish that at some point a Polynesian group saw the Antarctic ocean and possibly the continent of Antarctica, and then a very vague paragraph of how Māori have "repositories of knowledge" that "depict both voyagers and navigational and astronomical knowledge", and then claim "(f)urther evidence of Māori exploration is likely to enter the public domain in future" - the rest of the paper is comprised of more recent stories of how the Māori have participated in Antarctic research in the period since 1840 with European explorers.
In light of the great links provided by u/Snapshot52 here to oral historical methods in a recent askhistorians [post] (https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/o7c9rc/mass_graves_of_indigenous_peoples_keep_getting/), I was curious what everyone's thoughts are regarding the breathless reporting on this paper vs. the actual content, or if there has been any academic responses to it. It seems a little light, but it's not my field. So for the same reason, perhaps I'm not reading it correctly, but I'm having trouble seeing what new ground it is covering as far as research goes; again, with the caveat I don't know the field. It seems to allude to "knowledge", but did Māori explore the continent of Antarctica, and what do the oral histories and "grey literature" the authors talk about actually inform us of?
None.
There are three problems here:
Antarctica. That paper, A short scan of Māori journeys to Antarctica, itself only claims 'In some narratives, Hui Te Rangiora and his crew continued south. A long way south. In so doing, they were likely the first humans to set eyes on Antarctic waters and perhaps the continent.' So despite the excited press release and subsequent popsci articles the source paper doesn't claim Antarctic landings let alone exploration.
Māori. The people who explored the Pacific and made many planned voyages and settlements, taking plants and animals too, are Polynesian. Māori are Polynesians who settled in Aotearoa New Zealand about 1350AD and remained there. The paper itself says 'Polynesian narratives of voyaging between the islands include voyaging into Antarctic waters by Hui Te Rangiora (also known as Ūi Te Rangiora) and his crew on the vessel Te Ivi o Atea, likely in the early seventh century'. Note the use of 'Polynesian' not Māori. Note the date, setting this legend half a millennium prior to Māori culture.
Oral history: Tupaia was a master navigator from Tahiti who travelled with Cook. He accompanied Cook to Aotearoa New Zealand. Tupaia’s map, draw onboard the Endeavour, along with the records of the voyage show that Tupaia knew the way from Tahiti to Tonga, and most of the Pacific islands in between. He knew this because of oral history - there was no writing system in use. Notably, he had no interest in travelling south and apparently no previous knowledge of Aotearoa New Zealand.
Oral tradition has to be viewed alongside other evidence, such as Polynesian navigators setting out into the prevailing winds for a safe return home. Not south but east and west on the trade winds.
The Making of Tupaia’s Map: A Story of the Extent and Mastery of Polynesian Navigation, Competing Systems of Wayfinding on James Cook’s Endeavour, and the Invention of an Ingenious Cartographic System is well worth reading for the amazing feats of navigation passed on through oral storytelling in Polynesia.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00223344.2018.1512369
Edit: a great source for Māori settlement history is Quest for Origins,
Kerry Howe, 2008, ISBN: 9780143008453
Howe covers the alternative theories politely while giving a linguistic, archeological, and botanical evidence for planned migration from Taiwan via Polynesia to Aotearoa.