The girls of Vunivanua all had lovers,
     But I, poor I, had not even one. 
     Yet I fell desperately in love one day,
     My eye was filled with the beauty of Vasunilawedua. 
     She ran along the beach, she called the canoe-men. 
     She is conveyed to the town where her beloved dwells. 
     Na Ulumatua sits in his canoe unfastening its gear. 
     He asks her, “Why have you come here, Sovanalasikula?”
     “They have been falling in love at Vunivanua,” she answers;
     “I, too, have fallen in love.  I love your lovely son,
          Vasunilawedua.” 
     Na Ulumatua rose to his feet.  He loosened a tambua whale’s
          tooth from the canoe. 
     “This,” he said, presenting it to her, “is my offering to
          you for your return.  My son cannot wed you, lady.” 
     Tears stream from her eyes, they stream down on her breast. 
     “Let me only live outside his house,” she says;
     “I will sleep upon the wood-pile.  If I may only light his
          seluka [cigarrette] for him, I shall rejoice. 
     If I may only hear his voice from a distance, it will
          suffice.  Life will be pleasant to me.” 
     Na Ulumatua replied, “Be magnanimous, lady, and return. 
     We have many girls of our own.  Return to your own land. 
     Vasunilawedua cannot wed a stranger.” 
     Sovanalasikula went away crying. 
     She returned to her own town, forlorn. 
     Her life was sadness. 
     Ia nam bosulu.

Tregear (102) describes the “wooing house” in which New Zealand girls used to stand up in the dark and say:  “I love so-and-so, I want him for a husband;” whereupon the chosen lover, if willing, would say yes, or cough to signify his assent.  Among the Pueblo Indians

“the usual order of courtship is reversed; when a girl is disposed to marry, she does not wait for a young man to propose to her, but selects one to her own liking and consults her father, who visits the parents of the youth and acquaints them with his daughter’s wishes.  It seldom happens that any objections to the match are made” (Bancroft, I., 547);

and concerning the Spokane Indians the same writer says (276) that a girl “may herself propose if she wishes.”  Among the Moquis, “instead of the swain asking the hand of the fair one, she selects the young man who is to her fancy, and then her father proposes the match to the sire of the lucky youth” (Schoolcraft, IV., 86).  Among the Dariens, says Heriot (325), “it is considered no mark of forwardness” in a woman “openly to avow her inclination,” and in Paraguay, too, women were allowed to propose (Moore, 261).  Indian girls of the Hudson River region

“were not debarred signifying their desire to enter matrimonial life.  When one of them wished to be married, she covered her face with a veil and sat covered as an indication of her desire.  If she attracted a suitor, negotiations were opened with parents or friends, presents given, and the bride taken” (Ruttenber).

A comic mode of catching a husband is described in an episode from the tale “Owasso and Wayoond” (Schoolcraft, A.R. II., 210-11):