Hawaiian Music: Past and Present
Hawaii, the 50th State in the United States of America, was annexed during the term of President William McKinley in 1898. Prior to this, Hawaii was independent but in the more recent 100 years or so before 1898, there was a desire, or perceived desire, by the world powers to control Hawaii because of its geographic location. This was primarily because of military strategic opportunities. In 1875 the United States and Hawaii established a trade agreement centered heavily on the sugar industry in Hawaii which led to, “ United States sugar plantation owners from the United States (coming) to dominate the economy and politics of the islands”(Department of State). With the increasing outside influence and power, Queen Liliuokalani, who would end up being Hawaii’s last sovereign monarch, sought to increase the power of the monarchy which led to her being removed from power by Americans led by Sanford B. Dole (cousin of James Dole of the Dole food company). This led to the aforementioned annexation, followed by Hawaii being declared a territory in the year 1900 and later being named the 50th state on August 21, 1959.
A time long before outsider contact is interesting to cover as it provides more insight into the core of this Hawaiian, Polynesian, culture more so in purity. The Hawaiian islands are in the part of the Pacific Ocean known as Polynesia, which also includes; Tonga, Samoa, the Marquesas islands, and New Zealand, among others. Although an unnamed Spanish explorer made contact sometime in the 1500s, the first significant outsider contact is believed to have occurred when Captain James Cook, and explorer from England, landed on Kauai in 1778. Cook called the islands the Sandwich Islands. He made his way back to Europe having documented observations in his journals, which spread knowledge of his discovery. While this contact is significant for having been first, it was but preliminary. A much more fateful contact was made in 1820 when the first missionaries arrived on the Islands. These were Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Dutch Reformists who came from Boston, New England (Hawaii). Forever previous, the Hawaiian language was solely oral, there were no written forms. With the missionaries entering the scene, Reverend Hiram Bingham, their leader, began creating the written form of the Hawaiian language so that the missionaries could translate the Bible and spread its teachings to the Hawaiian people.
A big theme when looking at Hawaii and the culture and the music is that of precontact vs. postcontact with the outside world. Needless to say, the music of Hawaii changed greatly after 1820. The missionaries established singing schools and taught Western music theory(Tatar 481). Hawaiian music changed with general outsider influence, and the religion they brought, and also with the effects on language. So, let’s start with the foundations of the music itself and see how outside has had an influence.
Mele is a Hawaiian word which holds two meanings, it means music and at the same time, and equally, it means poetry. Although it is sometimes presently used to identify music that is precontact and more original, authentic, it has maintained the definition of music and poetry throughout. There are two types of mele, mele oli and mele hula. These take on the two meanings of mele, music and poetry. Mele oli is the poetry aspect. Mele oli is always chanted, and sometimes referred to by outsiders simply as chant, Hawaiian chant. The chanting form of mele oli comes directly from the way the Hawaiian language is, it has 12 letters, 7 consonants and 5 vowels which leads to (from a western perspective) long words with repeated sounds, that it lends itself to chanting. As mentioned, before 1820 Hawaiian language was strictly oral. This meant histories, myths, legends, genealogies, prayers, medical practices etc were all preserved orally through the mele, chanting. Upon creation of the written form of the Hawaiian language, researchers have found that Hawaiians began writing of most all of the aforementioned topics and many others which had previously been passed down through the chant (Tatar 483). Researchers found that there were over 210 different terms that described chants and different types of chanting. There were “chant terms” which referred to the meaning of the type of chant and the literal meaning, there were also “chant terms” which described the chants or chanting musically, sonically. The chants with the most meaning were the most sacred and were highest on the hierarchy of chants. There were many terms, 90 of the 210, which specifically described prayer chants. There were: “Cosmogonic (describing the race origins/ origins of man) (ku’ auhau) and genealogic (describing family history and lineage) (ko ‘ihonua) chants (Tatar 484). Prayer chants were addressed to the gods as well as to the people. These chants were performed without dance, that is in contrast to mele hula which had the extension of dance included.
Mele hula was considered to be “both the gift of the god Laka to the Hawaiian people and their tribute to her” (Solberg 43). Hula was very much religious it was a way to honor the gods. In the ancient times, before 1820, everyday Hawaiian people did not take hula lightly at all. They observed the sacred performance by paid professional performers who were accomplished having completed a great amount of education and training in order to be able to perform. These specialized hula performers were taught by hula masters, kumu hula, in schools, hula halau. The dancers were under strict rules “governing all aspects of behavior: dietary prohibitions, abstinence, personal cleanliness, and many other strictures (that) reinforced the discipline of the dance and sacred ritual” (Solberg 44). The musicians held a higher rank than the dancers and were “repositories of the historical and sacred songs”(Solberg 44). The rank of musician being the highest, who also has the responsibility of knowing and performing the chants, is a direct effect from the Hawaiians having an oral only language. These musicians memorized all the mele, so they knew all great information of history, lineage, nomenclature, prayer etc.
The following words by anthropologist E.C. Handy describe the significance and breadth of mele hula eloquently, efficiently, and precisely.
In the mele hula, the stories of love, war, the gods, ali’i honor, and every
phase of island life were put into dance form. The result produced for
Hawaiians a living picture of their whole existence… . The hula was
performed on occasions to invoke the gods at births, feasts, weddings, and
funerals. Wars, spells, charms, incantation, and just sheer entertainment
gave reason for the performance of the hula.
The hula … was the history book of a people without a written lan-
guage. Its main purpose was to keep up the relationship between gods and
mortals through dance. But, importantly, it also preserved the greatness of
the senior chiefly lines of rule. The hula honored the race and told of its
continuance through procreation. It described the beauty of their natural
environment. And finally, with all its rules and stratifications, the hula
forced the dancer to achieve perfection in the dance.
Wrapping up with the background and significance of mele oli and mele hula, let’s get into the actual sounds.
First, mele oli. Mele oli is performed solo, by one artist unaccompanied, and without music or dance. There is little in the way of rhythm or melody, mele oli is very much free meter. While there is not rhyme and there are variable line lengths, there are some predictable elements such as repetition. The conclusion of a phrase can be with a long carried out note or with a trill, and these different types of endings distinguish different types of oli “ Vocal style and inflection are of great significance in (these performances)” (Smith 51).
Mele hula is regular compared to mele oli, there is a stable meter and consistent line length. There are often two short, distinct, melodic phrases that are repeated in this type of mele. There are some types of mele hula that can be performed as mele oli and some “songs” of mele oli that can be performed in the hula style; the style chosen to give the performance holds a meaning and is an important facet of the performance itself. While mele oli is solo and a capella, mele hula can be performed in a chorus and is accompanied by music and so there are instruments to introduce. The first would be the pahu, or pahu hula. This is a wooden drum made of a hollowed out coconut tree and stretched with a shark-skin playing surface (Smith 51). The pahu is played with the hands. There is also the ipu, for drums. The only indigenous string instrument is the ukeke. The ukeke is a unique string instrument, it is a bow attached with sinnet (almost like straw). The instrument is played by plucking the taught twine while holding the wood side in your mouth and singing. Here is an example of a man playing the ukeke:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m-AFkWQG7o (skip to :40 sec)
I personally find the ukeke so interesting because I tend to think of instruments as being played one way by the body, and I feel that this is very unique because of how the sound is made with the mouth, voice, and fingers.
Another very interesting instrument used in mele hula is the ohe hano ihu, or the bamboo nose flute. According to Helen Roberts, who studied Hawaiian folk music extensively, in 1959, at that time, there were “probably not more than four or five persons… living who (could) play the ohe” hano ihu (Roberts 35). Considering the rarity, it is great that there are a quite a few YouTube videos of a gentleman demonstrating the nose flute and playing it which points to a revival of this once neglected tradition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcnYmxWPw6w
A few other instruments just to be touched on quickly are the pu, the uliuli, and the papa hehi. The pu is an ancient instrument, it is a conch shell trumpet that was used to signal. The uli'uli is a Calabash gourd adorned with red and yellow feathers and filled with seeds. The papa hehi is a stamping board played with the foot like a pedal.
Now, let’s get it back to the pre and post contact discussion. As alluded to earlier, the missionaries that landed in 1820 had a huge impact. While they “They sought to suppress all activities opposed to their concept of Christian living, including ancient music, and dance. They translated their hymns into the Hawaiian language and taught them to the natives. Some of these hymns are still sung”(Smith 52). Thanks to ethnomusicologists Helen Roberts, we have a calibration point to compare contemporary Hawaiian music against. “In 1923 a large sample of about 300 chants performed by Hawaiians born between 1820 and 1860 was recorded by Helen Roberts” (Tatar 482). These subjects lived in relatively remote areas of the islands, and only spoke Hawaiian. Also, they were trained traditionally. This suggests that we can consider their song as authentic and precontact especially when comparing against contemporary. As the language was always oral prior to this, and the oli were passed down through the generations, the oli didn’t exactly hold the same meaning with the introduction of written language. Previously, there were a few families that had preserved some especially sacred oli through their lineage. Some of the oli being sacred is also evident in that these families were protective of who to pass these oli down through to protect against the chants getting into the wrong hands and someone potentially disrespecting the oli or not showing the proper reverence and respect.
According to Dr. Elizabeth Tatar, an ethnomusicologist from UCLA, the Hawaiian chanting from the recordings by Helen Roberts is very different from the more recent Hawaiian chanting recordings. The change is a result of the western musical influence brought by the missionaries. The western influence also caused a linguistic, pronunciation, shift in the Hawaiian language in which the physical, oral (literally inside the mouth, tongue etc), properties of the language changed, resulting in a much different sound.
The missionaries suppressed Hawaiian culture that they considered to be deviant, immodest, or un-Christian. They attempted to shut out hula. Gaining the support of the monarch at the time, Queen Ka’ahumanu, there was a ban on hula performances in 1830. For some time after this hula became an underground, secretive thing until 1883 when they were brought back under King Kalakaua (Missionaries).
Over time although hula was underground, it being the musical version of mele, there were many outside musical influences. For example, the ukulele made its way into the culture by way of Iberian sailors. It was originally called the bragha, a four stringed instrument, and adopted as the ukulele by the Hawaiians and incorporated into the hula. Also, I would be remiss to not mention the slack key guitar which was a variation invented by a Hawaiian schoolboy of the outsider instrument, the guitar.
There was a "revitalization of (ancient) Hawaiian traditions" in the early 1970s, called the Hawaiian Renaissance. The musical style of the 1800s and it's influence had lessened from the contemporary music and gave way to the influence of outside cultures. This caused there to be an interest in learning about the original music and bringing back some of the tradition.
The population of Hawaii currently is very diverse with many immigrants from all over the world including Japan, the United States, Korea, the Philippines and Europe. This has resulted in much musical influence, especially from the Japanese who are one of the larger racial groups in the islands. The result is that modern Hawaiian music has influences of jazz, Asian and Western musics, as well as old Hawaiian music. It has also resulted in mele hula becoming “touristy” in the eyes of some people. So, the major change in mele hula is the meaning, the instrumentation, and the intent (tourism vs. religious). Overall, the biggest change inducing factors were the religion, writing and the instrumentation.
Although the outside influence has certainly changed the flavor of Hawaiian music, it has been said that the music is still uniquely Hawaiian, mostly because of the vocal style. Also there is a religious line throughout where before there were the indigenous religious songs, and currently there are hymns, himeni, introduced by the missionaries.
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I’ll leave you with a cool present day fusion, and a personal favorite of mine, that could not have been possible without the outsider influence and synergy. This is a cover of The Notorious B.I.G.’s song Big Poppa performed with a Hawaiian ukulele.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_OyAp4IT40