Music of Hawaii

 In this blog I choose to do Hawaiian music. It is known that traditional Hawaiian music has had a huge impact on the popular music genre reggae music. But after looking into the history of this culture's music I have gained a deeper understanding and appreciation for its music.

  

The history of Hawaiian tribes starts between  940 and 1130 AD. When Polynesian settlers came to the islands to isolate themselves from the rest of the world. It is still debated today as too how many people actually were apart of the 1st settlement in Hawaii, it ranges from 300 to 800 people. The 1st person to establish any type of order on the island was a priest named  Pā‘ao, with his order he separated the people into a class system. According to wikipedia “The aliʻi nui was the king, with his ʻaha kuhina just below them. The aliʻi were the royal nobles with the kahuna (high priest) below them, the makaʻāinana (commoners) next with the kauā below them as the lowest ranking social caste.”

A lot of the religion in Hawaii mainly comes from the religion Polynesian religion. There are 4 major gods: Kū, Kāne, Lono, Kanaloa. Forty male gods or aspects of Kāne, four hundred gods and goddesses,and spirits and guardians. 

A European explorer named James Cook led most of the immigration into the island. Many Protestant missionaries came to set up sugar plantations. Then came loads of people from Japan, China and the Philippines to work at the newly made plantation. Of course with all of the people came many diseases that knocked out a lot of the native population. Throughout history many countries have claimed to have control over the islands but it wasn’t until 1898 when the US completely gained control of the islands through the “Newland Resolution”, which annexed Hawaii by the US claiming the territory. 

Hawaiian music like most cultural music 1st comes from religion. The music originates 1st from religious chants and hymns. However, along with the arrival of the Spanish who brought along string instruments like the guitar and a ukulele type instrument called the braguinha. 

The Spanish taught the people of the island a new style of playing the guitar called slacking, which is when you loosen the strings of the guitar to make them a lower key and pluck at the strings to make a song.

Hawaii from when the settlers came was made up of many different styles of music from all the different cultures of people who migrated to the islands. 

The most recent example of Hawaiian music is from a popular song popularized by tiktok called 35 by Ka Hao 

It is also widely known that hula dancing is often accompanied by the music of Hawaii, developed in Hawaii by the 1st Polynesian settlers as a visual representation of the words in songs by using hand motions and swaying the hips like the waves of the ocean.

This video is quick how to on hula dancing.