Portuguese Instrument Origins: Machête, Rajão & Cavaquinho

The ukulele has two direct Portuguese ancestor instruments: the machête (also called braguinha), a four-string instrument from Braga, Portugal, and the rajão, a five-string instrument from Madeira. Portuguese immigrants combined elements of both in Hawaii in 1879 to create the ukulele.

For the full founding story, see our ukulele history homepage or our ukulele makers history.

The Machête (Braguinha)

The machête, also known as the braguinha, is a small four-stringed instrument originating in Braga, Portugal. It has a compact body with wire strings and a bright, piercing tone. The machête gave the ukulele its physical body shape — the small figure-eight form that defines the instrument visually.

When Joao Fernandes stepped off the SS Ravenscrag in Honolulu Harbor in August 1879, he was carrying a machête. He burst into song on the dock, celebrating after four months at sea — this moment is considered the ukulele's first performance in Hawaii.

The Rajão

The rajão is a five-string instrument from Madeira, Portugal. Its critical contribution to ukulele history is its tuning: the rajão's top four strings are tuned G-C-E-A, which became the ukulele's standard tuning. The fifth string (a low D) was simply dropped when Madeiran immigrants built the smaller, four-string ukulele.

The rajão's re-entrant tuning — where the G string is pitched higher than the C — is what gives the ukulele its signature bright, lilting sound. Without the rajão, the ukulele would sound like a small guitar rather than the unique instrument we know.

The Cavaquinho

The cavaquinho is a close Portuguese relative of the machête, played in Portugal and Brazil. While not a direct ancestor of the ukulele, it influenced the construction techniques used by early Honolulu makers. The cavaquinho is still widely played today in Brazilian samba and Portuguese fado music.

How the Three Became the Ukulele

FAQ

What Portuguese instrument became the ukulele?

The ukulele was created by combining two Portuguese instruments: the machête (which gave it its body shape) and the rajão (which gave it its G-C-E-A tuning). Neither instrument alone is the ukulele — it's a hybrid of both, built with Hawaiian koa wood.

What is the difference between a machête and a ukulele?

The machête has wire strings and a brighter, sharper tone, while the ukulele uses softer nylon strings and has a warmer, rounder sound. The machête is slightly smaller and tuned differently (D-G-B-D in some traditions). The ukulele adopted the rajão's G-C-E-A tuning, not the machête's.

Where did ukulele tuning come from?

G-C-E-A re-entrant tuning comes directly from the rajão, a five-string Madeiran instrument. The rajão's top four strings are G-C-E-A. When Madeiran immigrants built the four-string ukulele, they simply used the rajão's top four strings and dropped the fifth (low D).

The Family at a Glance: Six Points of Comparison

The three Portuguese instruments are constantly confused with each other and with the ukulele. Laid side by side, the differences are easy to hold in your head.

Why Madeira, and Why 1879?

The date is not arbitrary, and this is the part of the story that most retellings skip. Madeiran emigration to Hawaii in the late 1870s was driven by economics at both ends of the voyage: agricultural hardship and limited opportunity in Madeira, and Hawaiian sugar plantations actively recruiting contract labour. The instruments came as personal possessions of working people, not as exports.

Three consequences follow directly from that, and they explain the ukulele’s entire character:

• The makers were cabinetmakers and woodworkers first. They arrived as craftsmen with transferable skills, which is why instrument workshops appeared in Honolulu within a few years of arrival rather than a generation later.
• Local materials replaced familiar ones. Hawaiian koa was available where Madeiran timbers were not, and koa’s density and figure gave the new instrument a voice distinct from its ancestors.
• The tuning travelled with the hands, not with a manual. Keeping the rajão’s top four courses meant a maker’s existing muscle memory still worked on the new four-string instrument — an act of practical continuity that fixed the ukulele’s harmonic identity permanently.

What Re-entrant Tuning Actually Does to the Sound

The inherited rajão tuning is the single most consequential thing the Portuguese instruments handed over, and it is worth understanding rather than just repeating.

Because the fourth string is pitched higher than the third, a strummed chord does not ascend cleanly from low to high. The notes interleave, so the ear hears a cluster rather than a ladder — which is precisely the chiming, harp-like wash that people identify as “the ukulele sound”. Fit a low G string and that effect disappears: you gain range and conventional bass-under-melody logic, and you lose the characteristic shimmer. Neither is more correct, but only one of them is historical.

Continue with our documented history of the ukulele or the makers who built the first instruments.