Cultural invention

[3] This notion has been met with criticism from within the anthropological community as well as from outside sources, and has been referred to as both politically revisionist and anti-native.

[6] According to Marc J. Swartz, people of status within society play an important role in deciding what is understood as cultural reality.

[8] Allan Hanson proposed that several aspects of Maori culture had been invented by European scholars who were accustomed to analytical frameworks focused on long-distance migration and diffusion.

Because of this, he believed that European scholars constructed the notion that a "Great Fleet", headed by a man named Kupe from a neighboring island, who was responsible for the initial discovery and peopling of New Zealand.

The story of Io creating the world is so similar to that of the Book of Genesis in the Bible, that it is believed to have been a European invention.