A Little Uke History....

ORIGINS AND LEGENDS

When the Ravenscrag arrived in Honolulu on the afternoon of August 23, 1879, it was carrying 419 Portuguese immigrants from the island of Madeira to work in the sugar cane fields. It had been a long and hard journey of over 4 months and some 15,000 miles. In celebration of their arrival, Joao Fernandes borrowed his friend's braguinha, jumped off the ship, and started playing folks songs from his native land on the wharf. The Hawaiians who came down to the dock were very impressed at the speed of this musicians' fingers as they danced across the fingerboard and they called the instrument "ukulele", which translates into English as "jumping flea". You see, that was the image conjured up by those flying fingers.

At least that's one of the stories about the origin of the name "ukulele". Typical to much of Hawaiian history, there are several accounts of how the ukulele got it's name. Queen Lili'uokalani thought it came from the Hawaiian words for "the gift that came here", or "uku" (gift or reward) and "lele" (to come). Another legend says the instrument was originally called "ukeke lele" or "dancing ukeke" (ukeke being the Hawaiian's three stringed musical bow). The name, being mispronounced over the years, became "ukulele". Another theory comes from a story about Edward Purvis, an English army officer and the Assistant Chamberlain to the court of King David Kalakaua, who was very adept at playing the braguinha. Since he was small and sprightly, the rather large Hawaiians nicknamed him "ukulele", the whole "jumping flea" thing all over again. Still another version of the origin of the world "ukulele" is attributed to Gabriel Davian and Judge W. L. Wilcox, who was a member of a well-known island family. According to the story, the two men were in attendance at a housewarming party at the Wilcox home in Kahili, where Davian was playing an 'ukulele he had made himself. When one of the guests asked what it was called, Davion jokingly replied that, judging from the way one "scratched at it," it was a "jumping flea". Wilcox, who was fluent in Hawaiian, was asked for the Hawaiian translation and is supposed to have answered, "'Ukulele!".

Over the years, the "jumping flea" legend, the one where Joao Fernandes' fingers were jumping like fleas over the fingerboard, has become the most accepted, probably because that is the coolest story and Hawaiians just love a cool story.

THE UKULELE BECOMES POPULAR

The Hawaiian people took to the ukulele very fast and within 10 years it had become Hawaii's most popular instrument. Much of this can be attributed to Joao Fernandes, the original fellow who jumped off the boat playing his home town folk songs. The story goes that he spent most of his time walking around Honolulu playing his ukulele, spending so much time at this, in fact, that his wife complained! The Hawaiians, who had by now become familiar with the sounds of guitars and other stringed instruments, liked what they heard. They became not only listeners, but students as well. Additionally, the ukulele was easy to learn to play and very portable.

Since the popularity of the ukulele depended on them being around for everybody, manufacturing ukuleles was an important element in it's success story. On the original immigrant boat, Ravenscrag , there were several Portuguese who were capable of making musical instruments; Augusto Dias, Jose do Espirito Santo, and Manuel Nunes. In 1884, Dias opened a small shop on King Street for manufacturing and repairing musical instruments, especially guitars and ukuleles. Four years later, both Santos and Nunes had opened shop. Of these, the most successful seems to have been Nunes, as he and his son Leonardo were making ukuleles into the 1930s.

Eventually, special wood cutting and wood shaping machines were developed to make ukuleles, but the early process of making them was a painstaking art, requiring many hours of work and all hand-made. How many ukuleles were made this way is unknown, but it would appear that the number was not great until the 1910s when productivity accelerated through the use of more modern equipment. The cost of a ukulele at this time was between $3 and $5, a considerable sum when you consider many people in those days only made $5 per month. Many people who could not afford a ukulele made their own out of coconut shell halves, cigar boxes, and other unusual material.