![]() Credit of the design of the ukulele goes to three Portuguese cabinet makers from Madeira who settled on O’ahu named Manuel Nunes, José do Espírito Santo, and Augusto Dias. As the machete became the ukulele, it became a very popular instrument across Hawai’i thanks especially to King David Kalakaua and, later, Queen Lili’uokalani. Soon after the instrument arrived in Hawaii, however, the tuning was changed to the re-entrant (high-G) GCEA and the name “ukulele” stuck. Instead of the traditional “my dog has fleas” (GCEA), the machete was tuned DGBD. The machete (or braguinha) used a different tuning from today’s ukulele. (Check out this great article by Sagor Nagyszalanczy for a wonderful narration of this part of the ukulele’s history.) From machete to ukulele Witnesses described Fernandes’s fingers dancing around the fingerboard like a “jumping flea” (an ‘ukulele). A certain talented musician named Joao Fernandes jumped off the ship and began to sing and play his machete to celebrate the ship’s safe arrival. When the SS Ravenscrag arrived at Honolulu harbor in 1879, it had just completed an over 12,000-mile journey. Also known as the “machete de Braga,” the braguihna was a small four-stringed instrument from the archipelago of Madeira. They arrived with some of their most popular musical instruments. Portuguese immigrants first arrived on Hawai’i in the 19th century to escape famine in their homeland. We’ll need to take a few turns along the way to get to our destination. ![]() The history of the term and the instrument associated with it are open to some interpretation, in fact. ![]() What exactly does the Hawaiian word “ ukulele” mean in English? The answer is not as straightforward as you might think.
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