| Ukulele
(say "oo-koo-lay-lay") is a Hawaiian word, which
probably doesn't surprise you. But the country that the ukulele
actually originated from may be different than you expect.
Three cabinetmakers, Manuel Nunes, Jose do Espirito Santo,
and Augusto Dias migrated from the Portuguese island of Madeira
to Hawaii in 1879, together with two talented musicians, Joao
Fernandes and Jose Juiz Correa. Also aboard the ship Ravenscrag
was a small, four-stringed Madeiran instrument called the
machete, which the people of Hawaii were quickly taken with.
After
serving out their plantation contracts, Nunes, Santo and
Dias moved to Honolulu in the 1880s and began to build and
sell machetes -- which rapidly became known as ukuleles.
Nunes, the most prolific maker of the three, lived long
enough to see the ukulele become popular on the mainland,
first in California and by 1915 nationwide.
The
word "ukulele" means "jumping flea";
one of the most popular explanations of the name is that
the islanders named it to describe flying fingers playing
the neck of the ukulele (say "oo-koo-lay-lay"
again!)
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