Mele are chants, songs, or poems. The term comes from the Hawaiian language. It is frequently used in song titles such as "
He Mele Lahui Hawaii
"He Mele Lāhui Hawaiʻi" ("Song of the Hawaiian Nation") was composed by Liliʻuokalani in November 1866 at the request of Kamehameha V, who wanted a national anthem to replace the British anthem "God Save the King". It replaced Lunalilo's compo ...
", composed in 1866 by
Liliuokalani as a national anthem. Hawaiian songbooks often carry the word in the book's title. Mele is a
cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical e ...
of
Fijian language
Fijian (') is an Austronesian language of the Malayo-Polynesian family spoken by some 350,000–450,000 ethnic Fijians as a native language. The 2013 Constitution established Fijian as an official language of Fiji, along with English and Fi ...
meke
Meke, in the Fijian language, is all traditional style of dance. It is a cognate of the words ''"maka"'' (Rotuman language, Rotuman) and ''"Mele (Hawaiian language), mele"'' in Hawaiian. It is typically performed during celebrations and festivals. ...
.
In practical usage, the word can be combined with other words, such as Mele Hula, a metered chant. The word can either be a noun (He mele keia), or used as a verb to mean "to chant" or "to sing" (E mele mai...).
The 1,255 recordings of Hawaiian chants and songs made by ethnomusicologist
Helen Heffron Roberts
Helen Heffron Roberts (1888–1985) was an American anthropologist and pioneer ethnomusicologist. Her work included the study of the origins and development of music among the Jamaican Maroons, and the Puebloan peoples of the American southwest. ...
1923–1924 are cataloged at the
Bishop Museum
The Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, designated the Hawaii State Museum of Natural and Cultural History, is a museum of history and science in the historic Kalihi district of Honolulu on the Hawaiian island of Oʻahu. Founded in 1889, it is the lar ...
in
Honolulu
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the islan ...
as individual meles. The museum database has a separate search category titled "Mele Index". The Kawaihuelani Center for Hawaiian Language at the
University of Hawaii at Manoa
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...
teaches multiple classes on various aspects of mele.
References
Hawaiian words and phrases
Hawaii culture
{{Hawaii-stub