The ukulele history Hawaiʻi claims as its own does not begin in Hawaiʻi at all. It begins on a crowded ship called the Ravenscrag, which docked in Honolulu Harbor on August 23, 1879, carrying more than four hundred Madeiran laborers bound for the sugar plantations. Among them were three cabinetmakers — Manuel Nunes, Augusto Dias, and José do Espírito Santo — and a small four-stringed instrument from Portugal called the machete de braga. Within a generation, that instrument would be rebuilt in Hawaiian koa, renamed in the Hawaiian language, and carried around the world as the voice of the islands.
From Madeira to Honolulu Harbor
Accounts from the time describe an impromptu concert on the waterfront: newly arrived immigrants, exhausted from four months at sea, playing and singing in celebration of solid ground. The Hawaiian Gazette noted the "strange musical instruments" and the crowd they drew. The machete was small, bright, and loud for its size — easy to carry into a cane field, easy to play around a fire at the end of a long day.
The three woodworkers served out their plantation contracts and then did what woodworkers do. They opened shops in Honolulu and began building instruments. Nunes advertised himself for decades as the inventor of the ukulele, a claim his competitors disputed and historians still debate. What is not disputed is that all three men were building by the mid-1880s, and that they made one crucial change: they stopped using European woods and started using koa, the native Hawaiian hardwood that gives the instrument its warm, slightly sweet tone.
What Does "Ukulele" Mean?
The word ʻukulele translates literally as "jumping flea" — ʻuku (flea) and lele (to jump or leap). The most common explanation is that the nickname described the way a skilled player's fingers skitter across the fretboard. Queen Liliʻuokalani, herself a gifted composer, is said to have preferred a different reading: uku as gift or reward and lele as to come, making the instrument "the gift that came here." Another story credits Edward Purvis, a small, quick-moving British officer in King Kalākaua's court who played the instrument well and picked up the nickname himself.
All three explanations have their defenders, and none can be proven. That ambiguity is itself very Hawaiian — a name that carries several truths at once.
King Kalākaua and the Royal Endorsement
The ukulele would likely have remained a curiosity of the immigrant community without King David Kalākaua. The Merrie Monarch reigned from 1874 to 1891, and his reign was a deliberate revival of Hawaiian arts at a moment when missionary influence had pushed much of it underground. He restored hula to public performance. He supported Hawaiian-language newspapers. And he brought the ukulele into the royal court, where it was played at palace gatherings and paired with hula, giving it a legitimacy no advertisement could buy.
Kalākaua's patronage did something specific and lasting: it made the ukulele Hawaiian. An instrument that arrived as Portuguese cargo became, within roughly a decade, part of the sound of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
1915: The Ukulele Goes Global
The instrument's leap to the mainland can be dated with unusual precision. At the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, the Hawaiian Pavilion featured a daily program of Hawaiian music. Roughly seventeen million people attended the fair over its run, and a great many of them heard a ukulele for the first time.
The effect was immediate. By 1916, Hawaiian music outsold every other genre in the United States. Mainland manufacturers — Martin among them — rushed ukuleles into production. The instrument became a fixture of the Jazz Age, then of the 1950s living room, then faded, then came back again in the 1990s and 2000s. Israel Kamakawiwoʻole's medley of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "What a Wonderful World," recorded in a single take during a late-night studio session in 1988, has since introduced more people to the sound of a Hawaiian ukulele than any exposition ever could.
Why the Ukulele Still Matters in Hawaiʻi
It would be easy to read the ukulele as a souvenir — the instrument on the tourism poster. In the islands it is something plainer and more useful than that. It is the instrument at the family party, the one leaning in the corner of the living room, the one keiki learn in fourth grade at public schools across the state. Hawaiʻi is one of the few places on earth where a whole population can more or less pick one up.
- Soprano — the original size, brightest tone, most familiar sound.
- Concert — slightly larger, a little fuller, easier on adult hands.
- Tenor — the size favored by many professional players for its range and volume.
- Baritone — tuned lower, closer to the top four strings of a guitar.
The tradition it belongs to is a mixed one: Portuguese in origin, Hawaiian in language and material, shaped by paniolo guitar and by kī hōʻalu slack-key tunings that came before it. That layering is not a flaw in the story. It is the story — the same braiding of influences you find in the Hawaiian tees and island designs we draw from at our studio, where old forms keep finding new hands to carry them.
If you visit, you will hear it. At Kona farmers markets, at church on Sunday, at backyard parties where someone always knows the chords. It is a small instrument with four strings and a very long memory.
Bring the islands home: Explore our Hawaiian Tees — original designs from our Native Hawaiian–owned studio in Kailua-Kona, Hawaiʻi. Here are a few of the newest additions:
Hawaii Ohana Family — a family-first design for the ones who show up, sing along, and never get left behind.
Hawaii Legend Status — for those who do not just visit the islands but belong to them.
Aloha Social Butterfly — made for the one who starts the singing and knows everybody at the party.
Early Bird Aloha — for sunrise people who catch the quiet hour before the island wakes.
Keep reading from the Kahana Designs journal
- The history of hula: sacred rite to performance art
- Aloha Friday and the rise of the Hawaiian aloha shirt
- Koa Wood: Why Hawaiʻi's Native Hardwood Is So Treasured
- Hawaii T-Shirts: The Complete Guide to Authentic Hawaiian Tees
- What Makes Hawaiian Clothing Authentic? Aloha Wear, Culture & Design Explained