How Moikeha Gained a Wife
Puna, lord of Kauai, was a well-beloved and merciful man. Though he would not brook insolence, he was always ready to pardon a fisherman or servant who, in ignorance of his personality, broke the taboo by stepping on his shadow. His love for Hooipo, his daughter, was so strong that he delayed her marriage until the gallants began to complain, and the girl herself became uneasy, lest her charms should expand to a maturity that might hurt her matrimonial chances. As she had no preference, however, she agreed that her father might name the happy man. He, loth to incur the enmity of any at his court, resolved to offer her as a prize, and the fairest contest seemed in his mind to be a run to Kaula and back, each contestant to be allowed to use sail and carry four oarsmen, and the winner of the race to marry Hooipo.
A couple of days before the race was undertaken there arrived at Kauai a sturdy mariner, one Moikeha, who had just returned from a voyage to Raiatea, two thousand five hundred miles to the southward. Long trips of this sort were not unusual among the adventurous islanders, and there is a tradition that one of them brought to Hawaii two white men who became priests, and on a later exploration secured four “foreigners of large stature, bright, staring, roguish eyes, and reddish faces,” who may have been American Indians. Moikeha became the guest of Puna. He had not been long in the daughter’s company before Hooipo regretted the arrangement for a race, for she had found a man whom she could love. It was too late to argue with the candidates; there could be no hope of peace if the princess were withdrawn as an object of competition and thrown at the head of this stranger. By general consent he was allowed to take part in the race, provided he could cite an honorable parentage. This he did, for he was the son of a former chief in Oahu, and he rattled off the names of his ancestors for sixteen generations, ending the catalogue in this fashion, “Maweke and Niolaukea, husband and wife; Mulilealii and Wehelani, husband and wife; Moikeha and Hooipo, husband and wife.” This little joke, his assumption that the girl was already his, made everybody laugh and put the company in good humor.
At the word of command a score or more of lusty fellows pushed their boats through the surf, hoisted sail, and pointed their prows for Kaula, fifty miles away. Moikeha alone showed no haste. He bade a cheerful farewell to his host and the pretty daughter, marked with delight her serious look as he took his leave, then, with a single attendant and the smallest boat in the fleet, he set off across the blue water. Directly that her sail was up the little craft sprang through the sea as if blown by a hurricane, while the other boats slid over the glassy waves under the push of oars. “It is the fish-god, Apukohai, who drags his canoe,” declared the rowers, as he passed. In twenty-four hours he was at the side of Kooipo with the whale-tooth, proof of his voyage, that was delivered to him at Kaula by a servant who had been sent there with it in advance. He was easily the victor, the other contestants arriving from one to three days later. No objection being offered, the couple were married with rejoicings, and on the death of Puna the husband became chief, and married off eight or ten youngsters of his own. Not for a long time was it known that in the race for a wife his lone but potent companion was Laamaomao, the wind-god, who, loosing favorable breezes from his magic calabash, that blew whither he listed, carried him swiftly past all other competitors.