In the 1880’s, before the name ukulele became established, both the rajão and the cavaquinho got nicknamed “taro-patch fiddles”, perhaps because the white plantation owners suspected the “lazy natives” preferred to play music instead of working in the taro fields. (This racist attitude completely ignored the fact that tending the taro crop was hard work which the Hawaiians needed to do, because taro root was used to make poi, a mainstay of the Hawaiian diet.) By 1910, luthier Manuel Nunes, one of the three Madeiran instrument makers that immigrated to Hawaii in 1879, had started making a double-strung ukulele that he called a taro-patch. Perhaps he was inspired by the mandolin, or by several other double-strung instruments that still exist in Portugal; nobody knows.

On a taro-patch, the strings are arranged  in pairs, to give more volume. Usually the first and second pairs (called courses) are tuned in unison, while the third and fourth pairs are tuned in octaves. This gives the taro-patch a chimey, rich tone that is the ukulele equivalent of a twelve-string guitar. In a group of ukuleles playing together, the taro-patch adds a whole new dimension to the group sound.