The ukulele is based on several small guitar-like instruments of Portuguese origin: the machete, the cavaquinho, the timple and the rajão, introduced to the Hawaiian Islands by Portuguese immigrants from Madeira and Cape Verde.

One immigrant in particular, Madeiran cabinet maker Manuel Nunes, is generally credited as the inventor of the ukulele. By 1880, Manuel had begun building ukuleles commercially in Honolulu and, such was the instrument’s popularity, that it was soon embraced as the national instrument of Hawaii.

One of the most important factors in establishing the ukulele in Hawaiian music and culture was the ardent support and promotion of the instrument by King Kalākaua. A patron of the arts, he incorporated it into performances at royal gatherings. His successor and Hawaii’s last Monarch, Queen Lili’uokalani, played the ukulele and became one of Hawaii’s most famous songwriters penning the most famous song to ever come out of Hawaii – “Aloha ‘Oe.”

Opinions of the origins of the word ‘ukulele’ are quite divided with some asserting it is the Hawaiian word for ‘jumping flea’ perhaps because of the movement of player’s fingers, whilst others prefer Queen Lili’uokalani’s explanation that the word is derived from the Hawaiian meaning ‘a gift from over there’.