The Steel Heard ‘Round the World: Exposing the Global Reach of Indigenous Musical Journeys with the Hawaiian Steel Guitar

Abstract

In the late nineteenth century, Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) physically modified guitars and created a new technique for playing them. In the years that followed, hundreds of Hawaiian troupes, engaging new entertainment circuits that crisscrossed the globe, introduced the world to their “Hawaiian steel guitar,” from Shanghai to London, Kolkata to New Orleans. While performing Hawaiianmele, or songs, with their instrument, they demonstrated new virtues for the guitar’s potential in vernacular and commercial music making in these international markets. Based upon archival research, this essay considers the careers of several Hawaiian guitarists who travelled the world in the early twentieth century, connecting local soundscapes through the proliferation of an indigenous technology.