His Joyous Voice is Gone.

On Friday of this past week [5/1/1903], Ioane Ukeke died, and with his death, so too has one of the famous people of thirty or forty years ago left. Those days, Ioane was seen on the streets of town in full attire of a gentleman, and he was often mistaken by the foreign haole, as a prince of the land; but these past years, he went blind, and he was seen on the street sides playing the ukeke and sticking out his hat this way and that for some coins given charitably by the passersby.

Ioane is very famous in Hawaii for his playing of the ukeke. In his youth, he was a hula teacher [a’o hula], and he often went before the court of the alii as a hula leader [poo hula ?]. In those days, Ioane was seen on the streets in a velvet suit, beaver hat, glasses and a cane; he was called “Dandy” by the haole.

(Kuokoa, 5/8/1903, p. 6)

Ka Nupepa Kuokoa, Buke XLI, Helu 19, Aoao 6. Mei 8, 1903.