Gillilland Stone Money of Yap

7/27/2019 Gillilland Stone Money of Yap

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^ e Stone M o ne yof Yap

oA NUMISMATIC SURVEY

C o r a Lee C. Gi l l i l l and

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THE STONE MONEY OF YAPe/L N u m i s m a t i c S u r v e y

ISSUED0CT2 3 1973


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Bringing of Ra i to a festival, Yap , 1964. (Courtesy of Dr. Jam es R . LaForest , M iddletown, New York)


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Tl ie S tone Moneyof YapoA NUMISMATIC SURVEY

C o r a L e e C . G i l l i l l a n d

S M I T H S O N I A N S T U D I E S I N H I S T O R Y A N D T E C H N O L O G Y N U M B E R 2 3

S M I T HS ONI AN I NS T I T UT I ON P R E S SCity of Washington ^1975


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A B S T R A C TGil l i ll and , Cora Lee C. Th e S tone M oney of Y ap : A Num ismat ic Survey. SmithsonianStudies in History and Technology, nu m be r 2 3, 75 pages, 33 figures, 1 gra ph , 1 table ,frontispiece , 1975 . This synopsis of the history and role of ra i or stone money ofYap within the cul ture of the is lands has been drawn from the accounts of earlyt ravelers , an thropologis t s , and adminis t ra tors in the Western Paci f ic . The descr ipt ions, quarrying pract ices, and shipping methods of these stones are discussed, as wellas some of the "myths" that have grown up around these l arge pr imi t ive media ofexchange. Ear ly and more recent "exchange values" of the s tones are t raced wi th inthe i s lands , as wel l as in the in ternat ional numismat ic world .T he locat ion and per t ine nt da ta of 149 p ieces of s tone mon ey remo ved f romYap and now in publ ic and pr ivate co l lect ions throughout the world are providedwithin the table for reference and comparison of sizes, dates and history of accession.Sixty-four stones are i l lustrated, providing one of the most thorough studies of Yapesera i now avai lab le .

OFFICIAL PUBLICATION DATE i s h a n d s t a m p e d i n a l i m i t e d n u m b e r o f i n i t i a l c o p i e s a n d i s r e c o r d e di n t h e I n s t i t u t i o n ' s a n n u a l r e p o r t , Smithsonian Tear. S I PRESS NUMBER 5 2 9 6 .L i b r a r y o f C o n g re s s C a t a l o g i n g in P u b l i c a t i o n D a t aG i l l i l l a n d , C o r a L e e C .T h e s t o n e m o n e y o f Y a p .( S m i t h s o n i a n s t u d i e s i n h i s t o r y a n d t e c h n o l o g y ; n o . 2 3 )B i b l i o g r a p h y : p .S u p t . o f D o c s , n o . : S I 1.28:231. E t h n o l o g y C a r o l i n e I s l a n d s Y a p . 2 . S t o n e m o n e y . I . T i t l e . I I . S e r i e s : S m i t h s o n i a nI n s t i t u t i o n . S m i t h s o n i a n s t u d i e s i n h i s t o r y a n d t e c h n o l o g y ; n o . 2 3 .D U 5 6 8 . Y 3 G 5 4 3 3 2 . 4 ' 9 9 6 ' 6 7 5 - 6 1 9 0 4 7

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office,Washington, D.C. 20402-Price $1.70 (paper cover)Stock Number 047-001-00122-2


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PrefaceThis paper reviews the early history of the ra i or stone money of Yap as reportedby early foreign travelers and relates these stories to more recent observat ions, bothof wh ich comprise the "m ytho logy " of s tone money. I have compiled informationdocumenting the locat ion and acquisi t ion of pieces that have been taken out ofYap, and by so doing I have at tempted to provide some basis for a comparison of thestones.By private correspondence I contacted al l inst i tut ions l is ted in the tables andthe data I have used was drawn from these sources. The private owners were ei thercontacted personal ly or the data employed was obtained from the Yap DistrictAdministrator 's f i le on stone money.T h e ra i numerat ion given in the tables and i l lustrat ions is according to my ownsystem derived from arrangement of the stones by locat ion and ownership. In the

"Notes ," HRAF refers to the page number of the t rans la ted work in the HumanRelat io ns Are a Fi les at the Federa l City College, Wa shington , D .C. In th e app endixes, the spel l ing and wording of quoted mate rial is tha t of the original doc um ent s.A great deal of invaluable assistance was received from individuals here in theUnited States, as well as from residents of Micronesia, whose contribut ions areacknow ledged ei ther in the text or in the notes. W ithou t the assistance and coope rat ionof col leagues in museums and inst i tut ions around the world this work could nothave been accomplished. I specifical ly wish to thank Dr. Saul Riesenberg, SeniorEthnologis t , Depar tment of Anthropology, Nat ional Museum of Natural His tory ,Smithsonian Inst i tut ion, for his great generosi ty and assistance; and Dr. VladimirClain-Stefanel l i , Chairman, Department of Applied Arts , and Curator, Division ofNum ismat ics , Nat ional M useum of His tory and Technology, Smi thsonian Ins t i tu t ion;as well as Mrs. Elvira Clain-Stefanel l i , Curator, Division of Numismatics, NationalMuseum of History and Technology, Smithsonian Inst i tut ion, for their usual superiorprofessional guidance and encouragement in this project .


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ContentsPage

P R E F A C E vI N T R O D U C T I O N 1A C C O U N T S O F F O R E I G N V O Y A G E R S 2

Y a p I s S i g h t e d b y t h e F o r e i g n e r 2E a r l y A c c o u n t s o f Ra i 2T h e P i v o t o f C h a n g e 4T h e F o r e i g n e r s C o m e t o S t a y 5

T H E M A Z E O F S C I E N T I F I C A C C O U N T S 8D e s c r i p t i o n s o f t h e S t o n e s 8Q u a r r y i n g a n d S h i p p i n g P r a c t ic e s 9L o c a l U s e s 1 1

F O R E I G N I N T E R P R E T A T I O N O F V A L U E 1 3L O C A L I N T E R P R E T A T I O N O F V A L U E 16A J u d i c i a l A c c o u n t 1 6

T r a n s f e r o f T r a d i t i o n a l Y a p e s e M o n i e s 1 7A N D N o w T H E O R I G I N Q U E S T I O N . . 1 9A P P E N D I X 1 : C i v i l A c t i o n N o . 2 5 2 2A P P E N D I X 2 : Y a p I s l a n d s C o n g r e s s , R e s o l u t i o n N o . 1 0 - 6 5 2 6A P P E N D I X 3 : Y a p D i s t r i c t C o d e , P a r t B , T r a d i t i o n a l P r o p e r t y 2 7N O T E S 2 8R E F E R E N C E S 3 3T A B L E 3 7F I G U R E S 5 7


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The Stone Money of YapCora Lee C. Gi l l i l land

IntroductionOur world of credi t cards, discounts, prime rates,and collection agencies makes it easier for us to comprehend the n ineteenth-century Yapese economy thanit was for the whalers, t raders, and anthropologistsof that era who wrote about and created the romanceof the stone money island.1 As was the case in manyother primit ive societ ies, there were several differenttypes of "money" used on the is land of Yap. Oneof these forms, stone money (rai), has come to be

known internat ional ly, surpassing in notoriety theya r of pearl shell, the ga u or pearl shel l bead necklaces,the ma or huge ceremonial pest les, and even thembul, the special ly woven mats.

T he size, form, and mate rial brou ght dist inct ion toYapese stone money. Changing customs and values,exceptions to rules, considerat ion of occasions andpeople involved are al l a part of ra i economics. To thenineteenth-ce ntury Euro pean v i si tors, to whom moneywas for the most part hard metal with pre-establ ishedvalues adjustable only by the state, this was a part icularly foreign concept of currency.The legends and myths surrounding Yapese ra i arevaried. Th eir origin is know n only throu gh oralhistory, which has been collected by foreigners,t ranslated and often adapted to the theory of thewri ter. This l icense wil l become apparent in l ight ofother accounts when the origin quest ion is discussedin a later section. Likewise, there are many faultyimpressions wri t ten into numismatic accounts ofYapese rai. One has to know the social customs inorder to understand the monetary system. Unqualifiedstatements have often led to oversimplificat ion. Anear ly twent ie th-century anthropologis t , Wi lhelm Mi i l -

ler, established a relative date for the beginning ofstone money at 200 years before his writing.2 H eestablished this by asking his informants for the namesof all Yapese chiefs from the time of the earliest knownstone money to that of his own day and assuming acertain number of years to a generat ion, in this caseCora Lee C. Gillilland, Division of Numismatics, Departmen t ofApplied Arts, National Museum of History and Technology, Smithsonian Institution, W ashington, D.C. 20560.

to that of a chief. More current wri ters , in quotingMiil ler, have rewri t ten his s tatement and inferredthat , indeed, some stones on Yap are 200 years old.This wri ter 's experience of observing court cases,wherein the l ineage of the is landers was given, leadsher to bel ieve that this approach may not necessari lyhave been correct . The original dat ing was based onmathematical theory, but retel l ing has completelyal tered the original s tatement .

Early foreign invest igators have placed exchangevalues on stones, which for years thereafter have beenquoted as though a part of the definition of rai.Incorrect information is due, in part , to the fact thatentry to the area was restricted by foreign powers forthe greater part of our century. Accurate informationhas been so difficult to obtai n th at in 1966 Einzig wa sforced to ci te as "up-to-date" data supplied by aninformant who had visi ted Yap briefly 21 yearsearlier. 3

There has been the "south sea al lure" type ofreport ing in numismatic wri t ings of the Pacific area.Grass skirts , loincloths, doughnut-shaped stonesexchanged but seldom moved, the is land of stonemoney: how often these descript ions appear. Onevisual izes the same retouched scene that Wil lardPrice etched in the 1930s when describing an islandqueen going to market fol lowed by slaves carryingthe great stones.4 Though columnis t s cont inue topaint with the same rosy hues, the people of theseislands are, in fact , going about their contemporarybusiness of negotiat ing with Presidential appointeeson the terms of their current and future pol i t icalstatus. The palms of the Pacific today sway with thebreezes of the modern world!

Within the span of a century the stones of Yap havehad an al ternat ing and varying place within thesociety. Their manufacture and use, as well as localvalue, were and are yet modified by the cul turalinvasion of the foreigners. It is within this context ofchange that the author has a t t empted to s tudy s tonemoney from a numismatic point of view.

572 -509 O - 75 - l 1


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Accounts of Foreign VoyagersYap Is Sighted by the Foreigner

Unlike some emerging areas, such as those inCentral Africa, Yap has been known to the WesternWorld for over four centuries. Any avai lable accountof the Yapese and their early outside contacts arethose of foreign observers. An account of early Pacifich i s tory by Wi lhelm Mul ler , a German anthropologis twho studied in Yap between 1908 and 1910, const i tutes the accepted version of Yap's discovery. 5 H ereci tes that a Portuguese captain, Diego da Rocha,represent ing his own country and Spain, was t rying tofind a way to curb the Turkish blockade of the spiceroute. During 1525-1527, while sai l ing among theMolucca Islands, he was driven off course and sightedYap. This account of the original discovery, however,is still obscure, and there is a dispute as to whetherRocha 's " Is lands of Sequei ra" were e i ther Yap orUl i th i .6 There is also a quest ion relat ive to a second"discovery." Muller s tates that this was made by thefirst Spaniard to become associated with Yap,Alvaro Saavedra (or de Sayavedra). He set out fromthe harbor of S iguantanejo in New Spain on 31 October 1528 bound for the rich Moluccas in Indonesia.Wil l iam Lessa of the Universi ty of California, LosAngeles, s tates that Saavedra stopped in the NorthernMarshal ls and on his second trip sighted is lands inthe Eastern Carol ines.7 Muller ment ions thatSaavedra, on his way to the Phil ippines, had reachedUli thi in the Eastern Carol ines, which he termed"Los Reyes". These early inquiries become evenmore confusing when one reads that Ruy Lopez deVil lalobes, in Ja nu ar y 1543, was met on the is landof Fais with the greet ing "Buenos dias, metelotas." I twas reported that he was also met ei ther on Yap orUli thi with the same greet ing.8 Where knowledge ofEuropean languages may have been acqui red i squest ionable considering that this occurred only 22years af ter Magel lan d i scovered the Marianas .9

Andrew Sharp , wri t ing about the Paci f ic Is lands ,places 15 February 1626 as the date of the fi rstc lear ly es tab l i shed European contact wi th Yap.This encounter was made by the Nassau F leet under

Gheen Hugo Schapenham cross ing the Paci f ic f romNew Spain to Guam. Sharp poin t s out that theearly sequence of two islands lying south of Guamnear the lat i tude ten degrees north, could "only beFais or Ulithi for the first island and Yap for thesecond." He concedes that this atol l probably wasdiscovered earl ier by the sixteenth-century visi torsment ioned above.10

Early Accounts of RaiIn the late seventeenth and early eighteenthcenturies, Yap was ci ted by Jesui t missionaries who

had heard accounts of these is lands from nat ives ofother is land groups.1 1 One, Father Clain , S . J . , workingin the Phil ippines, met people who had drifted westward f rom Fais . Ano ther missonary , Fath er Cantov a,wri t ing from Guam, was told of the western is landsand their valuables by nat ive visi tors to Guam:

T h e s a m e I n d i a n t e ll s m e , w h i c h I f in d h a r d t o b e l i e v e t h a tther e a r e on h i s i s l and s i lver mines , bu t t hey t ake on ly s mal lquan t i t i es f rom i t f o r l ack o f p roper meta l i ns t rument s fo rd i g g i n g in th e g r o u n d w h e r e t h e y a r e f o u n d a n d t h a t w h e nthey do f ind a p i ece o f pu ie s i l ver t hey t r y to round i t o f f andmake a p r es en t o f i t t o t he Lord o f t he I s l and ; and tha t hehas enough of i t t o s e rve h im as a t h rone . . 12

The phrase "mines of s i lver" r ings a s t range note .The descript ion of "rounding off" the pieces (i .e. ,f inal quarrying procedures) is interest ing in l ight ofstone disks as we know them, al though the accountindicates that the pieces collectively served as at h rone .

More specific accounts of the Yapese did notappear unt i l the n ineteenth century when var iouspowerful countries sent expedit ions to the Pacific. Inthe early port ion of that century several accountstestify to the existence of the stone disks. Little comment , however , i s g iven to the economic pheno men onwhich accompanies the stones. I t is interest ing to lookat the various early accounts in order to assess thechanging place and values of the stones within the


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NUMBER 23local cul ture. All , of course, are presented from theforeigner 's view.

In the early 1800s, Otto von Kotzebue, sai l ing forthe czar of Russia, s topped in the Carol ines. In oneof his jou rna ls of the t rip, a reference is mad e to thestone disks:

E a p [ Y a p ] p r o d u c e s w h e t - s t o n e s , w h i c h t h e l o w e a s t e r l yi s l ands ob ta in f rom thence . They a r e a k inder g i f t o f na tu r et h a n t h e s il v e r , C a n t o v a , o n t h e t e s t i m o n y o f t h e n a t i v e , C a y a l ,as c r ibes to th i s i s l and . Kadu has exp la ined to us th i s t r ad i t i on .A wh i t e s tone is f ound in the moun ta in s of Ea p , t o wh ich thech ie f s have an exc lus ive r igh t ; t he i r s ea t s o f honor a r e madeof i t . O ne b lock fo rms the s ea t , and th e o ther t he bac k .K ad u has s een th i s s to ne ; i t i s ne i th er s i lve i nor m eta l . A ye l lows tone has the s ame honour in Pe l l i ( t he Pe lew i s l ands ) . 1 3

He later mentions that "in Wilson's voyage, theseat of a chief [of Palau] was carried away as ami l i t ary t rophy." 14 The wri t ings of Adelbert vonChamisso, the natural is t who sai led with Kotzebueand who wrote volume three of the Kotzebue journal sof the voyage, contain the same statement . 10 T h e i raccounts are extremely confusing, for "whet-stone," i twould seem, could only refer to the stone money disks;yet these publicat ion s, as did Ca ntov a's , im med iatelyproceed to a brief discussion of the chiefs' seats ofhonor. Both of these types of stone, the disks (money)and the slabs (seats of honor), are now found placedabout the failu or men 's houses on Yap. One wondersif the connec t ion by the early t ravelers was due to somemisunderstanding or i f there is a relat ionship. Abooklet published by the Office of the District Administrator, Yap, in 1966 speaks of these two types ofs tone monuments and l inks them together . Whenment ioning "some Yapese taboos" the booklet notes :

I t is f o rb id den to s i t o r s t and on top o f t he s tone mo ney tha ts t and s upr ig h t o r t o s i t on the stones wh ich a r e a rou nd thep la t fo rm of the houres and a r e us ed fo r back r es t s . 1 6

One also quest ions from where did Kotzebue andChamisso, or their nat ive informants understand thestone to originate? Did the stone used for the "whets tones" come f rom the mountains of Yap? Theymention Palau, but not as the source of the stone, asis indicated by later observers.

Twenty years af ter Kotzebue 's t r ip , CaptainDumont D'Urvil le visi ted these Pacific is lands. Hementioned "cyl inders" in reference to the people of"Pil lelew ." In the Ja nu ar y 1839 entry of his jou rna l ,he states:

I exchanged wi th the na t ives s ome ob jec t s o f t he i r i ndus t ry ,l i ke boxes , combs o f bone , cy l inder s o f l ime , a p l a t t e r o f c l ayan d a g r a nd d i s h des ign ed fo r t he i r f ood . .17

The "cyl inders of l ime" could possibly refer to stonedisks, but in the possession of Palauans, not Yapese.Th e descript ion is broa d, however, and mo re th anlikely refers to a tool such as a brea dfru it po un de r.By the middle of the century European traders haddescended upon the Carol ines . Captain AndrewCheyne, making his third voyage in the brig Naiadsai led through various is land groups, intending toestabl ish depots for t ropical produce. With Cheynecame all the hatred and disease so often associatedwith the Pacific traders.18 Although by the t ime ofthis voyage Palau was well known to explorers andtraders, Cheyne considered his visit to Yap to be arelat ively early foreign contact . Dorothy Shineberg,edi tor of his papers, s tates that he was probablycorrect in this assumption.19 Certainly he was one ofthe fi rst to make more than a few passing remarksabou t the is land. His jou rna l entry for 23 Aug ust 1843reads :

A t 9 A.M., t h e p r e m i e r a n d c h i e fs of T o m a l [ Y a p ] c a m e o nboa rd to r ece ive the i r p r es en t , s en t by A bb a Thu le [one of t hech ie fs of Pa l au] , f o r t he i r k ing , which con s i s t ed o f no th i ng mo reor l es s t han a round s tone , wi th a ho le in the cen t r e , s imi l a rto a s mal l upper mi l l s tone . Thes e s tones a r e very r a r e , andc o n s e q u e n t l y h i g h l y p r i z e d , b e i n g o n l y f o u n d i n t h e m o u n t a i n sof the Pa l lou I s l ands . 2 0

Up on welcoming them, the head of the Palau andelegat ion , whom Cheyne had brought wi th h im, sa idto the chiefs of Yap:I am the beare r o f a mes s age to you f rom the g r ea t and

p o w e r f u l A b b a T h u l e K i n g o f K o r o a r . T h e m e s s a g e is t h i s : A b b a T h u l e h a s s e n t u s w i t h t h i s E n g l i s h s h i p a s i n t e r p r e t e r sto your v i l l age fo r t he purpos e o f bar t e r ing wi th you fo r a ca rgoof b i che de mer [sic]. H e a l s o p l a c e d i n o m c h a r g e t h i s p r e s e n to f m o n e y , w h i c h w e n o w d e l i v e r t o y o u , a n d r e q u e s t y o u w i l lp r es e n t i t t o you i k ing as a t oken o f f r i ends h ip f rom A bb aT h u l e . 2 1The so-cal led "Pr ime Minis ter" in thanking thePalauans was repor ted to have said :

W e h a v e h e a r d t h e m e s s a g e y o u h a v e b r o u g h t f r o m y o u rk i n g , a c c o m p a n y i n g t h i s p r e s e n t o f m o n e y a n d o u r a n s w e r i st h i s : W e a c c e p t o f y o u r p r e s e n t , a n d d e s i r e y o u to c o n v e y o u rt h a n k s t o t h e g o o d A b b a T h u l e f or t h i s to k e n o f h i . r e g a r d , a n dalso for fen din g this Eng l ish ship to our is la nd. Th is is the f i rsts h i p o f t h a t n a t i o n w h i c h h a s e v e r a n c h o r e d i n o u r h a r b o u r ,an d we s ha l l us e our in f luence w i th our peo p le to co l l ec t acargo o f b i che de mer fo r her . 22The t r ade r r e s ponded :

I h a v e c a u t i o n e d m y c r e w n o t t o t a k e a n y t h i n g f r o m a n y o fyour s ub jec t s wi thou t pay ing them for i t ; and s hou ld I f i ndt h e m a c t i n g c o n t r a r y t o m y o r d e r s , I s h a l l m o s t a s s u r e d l yp u n i s h t h e m ; a n d I t h e r e f o re h o p e t h a t y o u w il l g i v e y o u rn a t i v e s a s i m i l a r c a u t i o n s o t h a t n o t h i n g m a y i n t e r v e n e t o m a rou i f i i end ly in t e r c our s e . 2 3


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SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGYHe then adds that he "handed them a present forthei r King." 2 4 and to ld h i s men that they must "pay"the nat ives for anything they took. One wonderswhat kind of payment he expected the men to use.Cheyne 's sh ip was under t aboo for one month andhe did not go ashore unt i l 22 September 1843.25He was an intel l igent and painstaking observer, whodescribed the council square, the large council house,the dress, canoes, weapons, food and the Yapesehabit of using betel nut .26 Yet despite all this henever mentioned seeing pieces of s tone money aboutthe council houses or in the homes or anywhere onthe is land.27 If they were in evidence, then as now,one cannot help but ques t ion why they were notincluded in his many meticulous observat ions.

He does describe having been cond ucted "to thecouncil square in the center of the vi l lage where al lthe chiefs meet, when discussing the affairs of thet r i be . " 2 8 Council square is identified in a footnote tohis diary by Dr. Saul Riesenberg of the SmithsonianInst i tut ion, who described i t as "a sl ight ly raised andpaved area, with upright s labs of s tone which werethe designated seats for chiefs at meetings," andremarks that Cheyne indicated that "women werenot al lowed to set foot on this elevated area." 2 9 Y etCheyne himself did not mention the stone slabs andused the word "mil lstone" only in reference to thegift he brought from Palau.

Alfred Tetens, a German trader and himself asignificant figure in Pacific history, became Cheyne'sagent and partner. Tetens thereby assumed solecommand of Cheyne 's sh ip , Acis, in its enterpriseswi th Palau and Yap. 3 0 It is in Tetens ' wri t ings 3 1that one finds some of the first descriptions of theYapese going to Palau to quarry and bring back thestone disks to Yap. Up to this point the avai lableaccounts have only at tested more or less to theexistence of the stones. The Jesui ts heard about thecus tom. Kotzebue and Chamisso repor ted that thestones were obtained by "the low eastern is lands"from Yap. Dumont D'Urvi l l e may have obtainedone in t ra d in g wi th the Palauans . Cheyne was sentwith one from Palau (which he bel ieved to be theonly source of the stone) in order to give it as a gifton Yap. The form, however, was certainly not unknown by the Yapese since Cheyne goes into detai labout the men of another vi l lage being disappointedtha t his vessel did not come there for they very m uchwanted the gift which was sent by Abba Thule. 3 2It is with Che yne's a gent , Alfred Teten s, and th en inal l fol lowing accounts that the t radi t ion of the stones

being quarr ied on P alau by the Yapese and carr iedfrom ther e to Ya p is told and retold. Tet en s ' m emo irsf rom 1862-1863 s ta te :

M y f r i e n d s h i p w i t h A b b a T h u l e w a s of t h e g r e a t e s t i m p o r t a n c e t o m e ; f or a l t h o u g h Y a p i s h o s t i le t o P a l a u , t h e p e o p l eof Y ap ha d to v i s i t Pa l au fo r t he p r ep ara t io n o f t he g r ea t s tonesw h i c h s e rv e t h e m a s m o n e y , a n d f o r o b t a i n i n g t h e c o n s e n t oft h e k i n g t o c a r r y t h e m a w a y . 3 3

In late 1865 while sai ling for the H am bu rg firmof Jo ha nn Caesar Godeffroy, T eten s record ed in hisj o u r n a l :

T h e r e w e r e a l s o p a s s e n g e r s o n b o a r d t h e Vesta. T h e s e w e r et e n n a t i v e s of Y a p w h o w i s h e d t o r e t u r n h o m e w i t h t h e b i gs t o n e s t h e y h a d c u t o n P a l a u a n d w h i c h a r e u s e d a s m o n e ya n d a r e c o n s i d e r e d o f g r e a t v a l u e . F o r s m a l l c h a n g e l a r g e s h e ll so f mother -o f -pear l a r e us ed . The l a rge co ins cu t ou t o f g l i s t en ingwh i t e s tone hav e the s hap e o f a b ig Swis s che es e ; in the mi dd le isa ho le as b ig as a f i s t t h rough which the beam for ca r ry ing themis p a s s e d . O n l y a l im i t e d a m o u n t o f t h i s c o i n a g e m a y b e m a d ea t one t ime , t hus as s ur ing a con t ro l l e d f inanc ia l s ys t em. 3 4

The Pivot of ChangeIt is from the wri t ings of Te tens a nd the observersof this period and those who were there after this t imethat one senses a turning point in the pol i t ical posi t ion

of Yap vis-a-vis Palau. Before the great influx ofEuropean t raders , there are var ious accounts of alarge circle of control wielded by Yap over otherisland groups. Wil l iam Lessa wri tes:

T h e r e i s a m p l e e a r l y d o c u m e n t a t i o n t o i l l u s t r a t e t h a t aspa r t o f t h i s t r i b u ta ry s ys t em the na t ive s fo r ab ou t 700 mi l eseas t o f Ya p ann ua l ly a r r iv ed in g r e a t f l ee ts t o b r in g t r ibu t e an dc a r r y o n t r a d e . 3 5

He states that Father Cantova said, "These is lands(Uli thi) l ike so many others of this archipelago aresubjects of the king of Yap." 3 6 Freder ick Wi l l i amChrist ian, an Englishman visi t ing in the Carol ineIslands in the 1890s, knew of this t radi t ion and said,"The nat ives on Ul i th i or Mackenzie group (nor thward of Yap) from ancient t imes were subject to Yap.They came down every February to pay thei rt r i b u t e . " 3 7 Father Salesius, a missionary who was inYap around the turn of the century, told of the canoesfrom the Eas t that came to t rade on Yap and broughtthe t ribute for the chief of Gatschabar (in Yap).3 8 Afew short years later, Arno Senfft , a German observerstudying on Yap, said of the custom, "Unti l a fewdecades ago, the chief of Gatschabar (in Yap) of thatday traveled to al l his t r ibutary is lands, took withhim some represen tat ives from each of the m. . . ." 39


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NUMBER 23The tribute was brought from the eastern lowislands to the high island of Yap. The Yapese powerwas, in part, due to their feats of black magic. Inthe early nineteenth century, Kotzebue spoke of thethreats of s torms with which the Yapese terrorizedtheir neighbors.40 Tetens observed, "Yap owes i ts

dominion over these is lands primari ly to rel igious,mythological conceptions and fears." 4 1 Lessa maintains that magic was the real threat wielded by theYapese.42 With this they subjugated those who fearful ly brought t ribute from the east .Contact, at least in trade, existed directly orindirect ly between Yap and Palau to the west .Kotzebue spoke of the t rade between the is lands asthe "main spr ing of navigat ion ," and s ta ted thatthe curcuma root ( turmeric) was " in great abundancea t E a p . " 4 3 Th is root "w hich is rasped to a powd er,forms a considerable branch of the t rade of Eap." **

Palau is then mentioned in this system of t rade byKotzebue as the p lace wheret h e i ro n w h i c h t h e E u r o p e a n s b r i n g is e x c h a n g e d f o r c u r c u m a .On the s ou th wes te rn g roup o f i s l ands they exchange s tu f f sfo r i r on o f which they a r e in want . A s quadron o f t en s a i l ,f i ve f rom Magemog and f ive f rom Eap . 4 5

Yap had curcuma and Palau the European i ron .The Yapese from ancient t imes maintained suzeraintyover their eastern neighbors probably, as Lessapointed out , by the threat of magic. In the 1860s and1870s, with increased European contact , the amountof i ron and then of fi re arms avai lable to Palauansmult ipl ied. At the same t ime, accounts begin toappear of the growing importance of Palau, specifical ly of Koror, as a center of European trade. "Thepeople of Koror, owing to the fact that foreign shipstouched only at their port , had become more powerfulthan those of other districts of the Palaus. Theypossessed more weapons and hence had subduedthei r neighbors ." 4 6 I have noted above that Tetensspoke of the host i l i ty that existed between Yap andPalau. As centers of their individual domains theywere also, no d oub t , r ivals . In his s tateme nt , Te tensimpl ied that Palau had the upper hand and theYapese had to obtain consent and permisssion toquarry the stone disks; but twenty years earl ierCheyne told of the King of Palau sending a presentto Yap. It would appear, therefore, that pol i t icalfortunes had changed, wherein the Yapese not onlyhad to obtain the consent of the people of Palau toquarry stones, but now also were forced to performmenial tasks for their Palauan hosts . In the last quar

ter of the n inetee nth centu ry, it was said tha t w henYapese strangers came in canoes to Palau they weret r ea t ed d i s da in fu l ly , becaus e , o ther t han per s ona l ab i l i t y , t heyb r o u g h t n o t h i n g w i t h t h e m b u t h u n g e r . T h e y w e r e p e r m i t t e dt o g o t o t h e u n i n h a b i t e d K o h e a l s ( c o r a l i sl a n d s s o u t h ofB a b e l d a o b ) a n d h a m m e r o u t t h e i r A r g o n i t e m o n e y , a n d fo roccas ion a l f ood o f f e red th em they we re r eq u i r e d to per fo ims e r v i c e s , w h i c h w e r e w i l l i n g l y r e n d e r e d b y t h e e n t e r p r i s i n g s o n sof Yap who were uns ure o f t hems e lves on fo r e ign s o i l . Theyga th er ed f irewood, car r ie d wa ter , bu i l t f ish-weir r, a nd acte d ass oo th s ayer s , doc to r s and con jure r s . 4 7

In 1903 Arn o Senfft w rot e:Th e broa d , pav ed s t r ee t of t he i s l and of Ko ror in Pa l au w asn o t c o n s t r u c t e d b y t h e i n h a b i t a n t s o f K o r o r b u t b y Y a p e s e a sp a y m e n t fo r p e r m i s s i o n to q u a r r y i n o r d e r t o m a n u f a c t u r em o n e y . 4 8

This is a far different Yapese than the one portrayedby the words of Cheyne and Tetens . The s ta tementthat the Yapese were unsure of themselves on foreignsoil also seems to be in opposition to what earlywri ters said of Yapese t rade, navigat ional abi l i t ies ,and conquests .

The Foreigners Come to StayEuropeans dur ing the mid-nineteenth centurymoved throughout the Pacific, always in search ofmarketable commodit ies, often col lect ing scient ific

data on their way, and providing nat ional claims forlater colonial expansion. Therefore, foreign ships inYap harbor were not unknown before the arrival ofCheyne and Tetens, though they were few.49 In thelast quarter of the century, however, s t rangers camein greater numbers. Their influence soon al tered thet rade and economy in a most dram at ic way. In the1860s Teten s me ntioned o ther Eur ope ans in theislands: Captain Woodin, for example, who is alsonamed by the visi t ing scient ist , Dr. Karl Semper. 50Jan S . Kubary , a Pole who had been employed bythe Godeffroy fi rm of Hamburg and who l ived fi rston Palau and later on Ponape, made visi ts to Yap. Hefirst came in 1870.51 This untrained but ski l l fulscient ist observed the Yapese money forms and wroteof the stone disks, of their t ransport , and their valueboth in local and E uro pea n terms. Th e Godeffroyfamily provided such men with their means of supportand establ ished a mu seum for their co l lect ions an d ajournal for publicat ion of their observat ions. Thesmaller and less influential H erns heim tra ding com pany, also of Hamburg, establ ished a branch on Yapin 1873,52 with Rober t F r ied lander s ta t ioned there as


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SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGYits agent.53 This firm took over the Godeffroy interestsin the Pacific when those pioneer financiers declaredbankruptcy in 1879.54 In the 1880s, a traveling Britishcolonial officer wrote of "a nat ive of Scotland namedWylie" as well as the Bri t ish subject R. I . Abbott and" t he Am er i cans Hender s on and C ap t a i n Ho l com b . " 55One of the largest of the German firms deal ing in thePaci f ic t rade, the Deutsche Handels -und P lantagen-Gesel lschaft , also operated a stat ion on Yap in 1885.56This ar ray of German companies brought men ofvarying talents , al l of whom helped to establ ish aGerman cla im in the Carol ines . Few, though, madeany great inroad into the profi table copra business. 57

One of the Pacific 's more colorful characters ,whose legend was enhanced in 1950 by the publicat ionof a novel and subsequent production of a moviebased on his l i fe, was David Sean O'Keefe. This Irish-American adventurer ' s unconvent ional t act ics gavehim the upper hand in the difficult business of collecting copra. He was paid with copra for t ransport ingra i from the quarries to Yap, enabling the Yapese toobtain ra i with much less risk of life or loss of stone.Captain O'Keefe obtained both power in the i s landsand weal th in the Hong Kong market through th i sdevice. For almost thirty years, from 1872 to 1901, theYapese obtained passage on one of the Captain 'sships.58 After hewing out the precious stone on Palau,they "ho ck ed " i t to O'Keefe for t ranspor t back toYap and then la ter recla imed i t wi th prepared copra .

Not only d id wri ters such as Kubary ment ion thepresence of O'Keefe on Yap, but the Spanish government in defense of i ts ownership of the Carol ines notedt he "Eng l i s hm an O'Keef" as a resident of the port ofY a p .5 9 J . R . LeHunte , t ravel ing as the Bri t i sh Judicia lCommiss ioner aboard the HMS Espiegle, repor ted tothe Acting High Commissioner for the WesternPacific at Fi j i that O'Keefe was held in high regard bythe nat ives of the is lands. " W e h ear h im spoken interms of eulogy by the Pelew and Ya p nat ives al ik e." 6 0Even h i s "b i t t ere s t ene my," Wa l ter Amery , sa id ofh i m :D u r i n g t h e l a st y e a r O ' K e e f e h a s d o n e m o r e c o p r a t r a d e t h a n

a n y o t h e r f i r m i n Y a p , o w i n g t o h i s h a v i n g t h e s t o n e m o n e ym a i n l y i n h i s h a n d s , a n d h i s b e i n g k i n d t o t h e n a t i v e s . O ' K e e f eh a s d o n e h i s b e s t t o i n g r a t i a t e h i m s e l f w i t h t h e Y a p p e o p l epr inc ipa l ly the ch ie f s . 6 1L e H u n t e , himself, observed:

A l m o s t t h e w h o l e t r a d e o f Y a p a n d P e l e w i s i n t h e h a n d s o fO ' K e e f e . H e a l s o h a s a m o n o p o l y f or a n o m i n a l r e n t a l o f t h ep r o d u c e o f S t . D a v i d ' s I s l a n d ( c l a i m e d b y t h e D u t c h G o v e r n o r )[ M a p i a I s l a n d , I n d o n e s i a ] f r o m w h i c h h e e x p o r t s a b o u t 2 2 0

t o n s o f c o p r a p e r a n n u m . T h e r e b e i n g n o l o c a l l a b o u r a t t h a tp l a c e , t h e i n h a b i t a n t s h a v i n g b e e n a l m o s t k i l l e d o f f b y t h en a t i v e s of T e r n a t e a n d N e w G u i n e a , O ' K e e f e e m p l o y s in m a k i n gc o p r a t h e r e n a t i v e s of Y a p a n d a l s o o f S a n s o r a l o r P u l oA n n a T h e a r r a n g e m e n t b e t w e e n t h e Y a p n a t i v e s a n dO ' K e e f e i s t h a t h e c o n v e y s t h e m o n e y c u t t e r s t o P e l e w a n d w i t ht h e i r c a r g o e s b a c k t o Y a p i n c o n s i d e r a t i o n f o r w h i c h h e o b t a i n sa p r o p o r t i o n a t e n u m b e r o f l a b o u r e r s t o g o t o S t . D a v i d ' s fo r t h et e r m o f s i x m o n t h s . B o t h t h e c h i e f s a n d t h e c o m m o n p e o p l e w ee x a m i n e d e x p r e s s e d t h e m s e l v e s p e r f e c t l y w i t h t h is a r r a n g e m e n twh ich ha d been f a i th fu l ly ca r r i ed o u t by bo t h s ides fo r a cons i d e r a b l e t i m e a n d i s l i k el y t o c o n t i n u e a s l o n g a s O ' K e e f e ' si n t e r e s t i n S t . D a v i d ' s , a n d t h i s d e m a n d f or P e l e w s t o n e - m o n e yin Yap , ex i s t s . 62

O'Keefe is also mentioned as one of the "twoAmericans engaged in the manufacture of s tonemoney on Palau and the t ranspor t ing of them to Yap"in an 1890 jou rn al of a Jap an ese ship.63 In 1895 uponhis arrival on Yap, Christ ian also spoke ofC a p t a i n O ' K e e f e t o w h o m I h a v e a l e t t e r of i n t r o d u c t i o n a n dwho i s t o ac t as my banker and genera l bus ines s agen t i n thes ewater s , i s away on one o f h i s l ong c ru i s es in the Pe lews andC e n t r a l C a r o l i n e s . 6 4

The captain 's business ventures based on thet ranspor ta t ion of ra i had been profi table as evidencedby his wil l . After the captain 's death, there was confusion as to whom should be heir to his fortunes. Hisfirst wife, Kathryn of Savannah, Georgia, employedthe law f i rm of O'Byrne, Har t r idge, Wright , andBre nna n to secure he r claim to his fortune. M r.Hartridge of this fi rm made several t r ips to Yap onher behalf.65 According to O'Keefe's wil l of 1890, heleft his estate to his second wife, Charlot te, whom hehad married without benefi t of prior divorce. Charlot te, alone, was to have received an annuity of onehundred pounds s ter l ing .66 The convers ion a t thatt ime was approximately five dol lars to one poundsterl ing. Five hundred dollars was a good yearlyincome, above the average annual earn ings forworkers in al l United States industries. 67 K a t h r y n ' sc la im, however , was upheld by the German cour t s onYap and the hei rs then mainta ined the O'Keefeinterest in copra, t ransferring the business to aGerman t rad ing company. Wi th the advent of WorldWar I , though, Japan seized cont ro l of the proper ty . 6 8As late as 1923, O'Keefe's wife, Charlot te, was reported "to l ive on the is land of Tarang in the harborof Yap where h i s trad ing s ta tion w as ." 69 Hi s daugh t e r ,Mrs. Alfred Scott, was then living on the island ofDu nig. It is an und ers tate me nt to say that this colorfulCaptain O'Keefe changed the economy and cus tomsof Ya p. Cont ra ry to Paul Einzig 's s ta teme nt , O 'Ke efe 's


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NUMBER 23cont r ibut ion deprecia ted the cul tural value of rai, bymaking possible the quarrying of more and largerstones.70 The increased avai labi l i ty and frequency oftransportat ion that his business afforded gave theindividual Yapese a chance for private ownership,thus disrupt ing the t radi t ional economic pat tern ofdisseminat ion of holdings from the apex to the widerbase of the society.

Over German pro tes t s , which were suppor ted byGreat Britain, Spain officially received title to theCarol ines by Papal confirmation in December 1885. 71Th e Span ish flag flew unti l 1899 when Spain acceptedGermany^ offer to purchase the area . Once againGerman traders hoisted their own flag. German

officials exercised more local control than had Spain,and their s t rict regulat ions somewhat al tered the localhabits . The Germans brought scient ists who studiedthe is land peoples and cul tures in depth and left themost extensive record of s tone money. During thisper iod Japanese t raders began to appear , and a t thebeginning of World W ar I (1914) when Ge rma nywas expel led , Ja pa n a l ready cont ro l led comm erce. R emaining competi t ion was quickly eradicated andunti l the end of the World War II the is lands servedas an integra l port ion of Ja pa n, herself. With the endof hostilities in 1945, the United States assumed theadm inistrat ion of the are a as a Un ited Nations Tru stTerr i tory .


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The Maze of Scientific AccountsDescriptions of the Stones

Scient ists who came or wrote about Yap used thelocal name for the stone money disks, but manydi f ferent phonet ic forms occurred . The Germansseemed to prefer fa . The Engl i shman Freder ick W.Chri s t i an and the American Wi l l i am H. Furness , aPhiladelphian who l ived on Yap for a year, spel ledthe word fe a nd fei, respect ively. Muller explainedthat the t erm "rai,^ which he had heard in connect ionwith the stone money, was the word used for the stonemater ia l , aragoni te .7 2 The current explanat ion i s thatthere were two designat ions for the stones. The peoplein the southern and south central parts of Yap onceused the word fei, while those of the northeastern andnorthern regions cal led stone money "rai." 73 T h eterm, fe i is no longer used by the Yapese, as fe i m ayalso mean "faces" in the outer is lands of the Yapadministrat ive district .74 T h u s , "rai" is now the accepted term in Yap proper and in contact wi th theoutside world.

In reading descript ions of ra i one often finds thecomparison with a mil ls tone. As previously mentioned,Cheyne equated the p iece brought f rom Palau asbeing similar to a "small upper mil ls tone." Tetensand Kubary 30 years later observed that the sizevaried from that "of a Swiss cheese up to that of ami l l s tone." 7o Russel l Robertson, speaking from notestaken abroad the Bri t ish schooner Rupak, which leftSingapore in 1875, said that the money of the "Uapgroup consisted of larger worked pieces in the shapeof a mil ls tone." 76

In trying to discover what these expressions of sizemight have meant to the n ineteenth-century Europeans ment ioned above, the wri ter consul ted Mr.George Ter ry Sha rrer of the Depa r tme nt of Indus t r ies ,Smithsonian Inst i tut ion. He informed me that inthe Smithsonian col lect ion the smallest hand-operatedmil lstone measures 25 cent imeters (10 in) in diameterand that an average stone would be about 91 cent imeters (3 ft ) . I then talked to Mr . Carlos E stradaof the in ternat ional ly known gourmet Wine andCheese Shop of Georgetown, W ashington , D. C ,

who told me that appenzel ler Swiss cheese made inAppenzel ler , S t . Gal l , and Zur ich , Swi tzer land ,measures about 53 or 56 cent imeters (21 or 22 in) indiameter . This var ie ty probably would have beenbet ter known to a German than would the o thersignificant variety, emmenthal Swiss cheese, theaverage of which would measure 1 mete r (39 in) .

Foreigners repor ted that ra i was measured by theYapese in terms of fathom s (the outstretche d arms)or spans (length of the outstretched fingers). Thesmallest uni ts were sometimes determined by thewidth of the finger.77 Kubary spoke of a three-spanpiece, which represented a cons iderable worth . 7 8Muller in wri t ing of the Yapese caste system foundthat among the many res t r i c t ions imposed uponthe low caste or t ribute payers was that they couldnot own stone money of more than four spans.79Senfft said that this caste at that t ime representedabout twenty per cent of the populat ion . 8 0 T h e ra ibrought f rom Palau to Yap in the Yapese canoesand/or rafts could not have exceeded eight spansat the most .81 It is current ly said on Yap that thelargest pieces were not brought on rafts .

82The largera i seen today on Yap and in many museums outs ide

Yap are ones that were t ranspor ted by foreign-bui l tships. Tetens, speaking of the Yapese who returnedfrom Palau aboard his Vesta, said that the 10 nat iveshad spent a long t ime on Palau in order to hew outthe s tone money and that they had 20 large p ieces .He mentioned that the "taler s ized pieces of thesame kind of stone . serve as lesser m on ey ." 83It is after the t ime of O'K eefe tha t the man y a ccou ntsof the extremely large ra i appear . One m us t r em em ber ,however, that the coming of O'Keefe also coincidedwi th the arr ival of a number of Europeans . LeHuntenoted in h i s repor t :

Equally rema rkable . . is the native money of Ya p, whichis al l procured from the neighborhood of Koror (Abba Thulefor poli t ical reasons retaining a monopoly of the supply).These pieces of money are disks of aragon ite, a stone in appe arance, l ike large crystals of quartz. I am not exaggerating thetruth or trespassing on the bounds of humour proper to anofficial report when I say that an average sized grindstone issmaller than an average sized piece of Ya p money (called a


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NUMBER 23" d o l l a r " ) a n d t h a t a m i l l s t o n e is n o t a n e x t r a v a g a n t c o m p a r i s o n .W e f o u n d n o l e ss t h a n a h u n d r e d Y a p n a t i v e s a t P e l e w o c c u p i e di n c u t t i n g t h e s e s t o n e s a n d p r e p a r i n g t h e m f o r t r a n s p o r t t oY a p . M a n y e x c e e d e d s i x f e e t i n d i a m e t e r a n d w e r e p r o p o r t i o n a l l y t h i c k , h a v i n g a l a r g e h o l e i n t h e c e n t r e t h r o u g h w h i c h alog o f wo od i s pas s ed a nd th i s wh en l a id ac ros s tw o canoes i ss u f f ic i en t t o s up po r t t he s tone in t r ans i t . W e ha d in fo rm at ionof one p i ece , whi ch we car r i ed t o Ya p , be in g n ine f ee t f ouri n c h e s i n d i a m e t e r a n d w e i g h e d f o u r a n d o n e h a l f t o n s . T h e s eex t r a ord ina ry s tones a r e s e t up in f ron t o f t he own er ' s hous e ,h i s i m p o r t a n c e a n d w e a l t h b e i n g b e t o k e n e d b y t h e n u m b e r o f" d o l l a r s " h e c a n s e t u p . 8 4

The same year R. S. Swanston, t ravel ing in thearea of Ya p, wrote in his jou rna l for 23 M ar ch 1883:Th ei r cur r en cy eons i s t s o f pea r l she l l s whi ch a r e a l l impo r t ed ,

[ an d] a quar t z os e t s h i s t [ ?] s tone ob ta ine d in Pe l lou wh ich i se u t o u t b y t h e n a t i v e s w i t h g r e a t l a b o u r i n t o c i r c u l a r p i e c e sres em bli ng gre at s ton es f rom tw o to s ix feet [ .6 to 1.8 m] i nd ia me ter an d f ro m th r e e to s ix inches [7 . 6 to 15 cm] on the edgean d five and e igh t i nches [13 and 20 cm ] in the ce n t r eth r oug h wh ich a ho le abou t four inches [10 cm ] in d i a me ter i sc u t s o m e a r e s e m i - t r a n s p a r e n t a n d f a i rl y s m o o t h . 8 5

Escude y Bartolf, briefly noted in 1885 that thestone pieces were "worked into diverse large sizes." 86Th e sam e year a Spanish count rym an, But ron y de laSerna, was more specific in quoting 20 cent imetersto one meter as the size of the "mil lstones." 87 ARussian visi tor to the t ropics, Miklucho-Maclay,wrote in 1878 that the mil ls tones vary from one toseven feet [.3 to 2.1 m] in diameter and weigh up toa couple of tons.8 8 Christ ian in the 1890s repcrts thatthe "medium of exchange in Yap, s tone money, consists of limestone or aragonite wheels varying fromsix to eight inches [15 to 20 cm] to twelve feet [3.6 m]i n d i am et e r . " 89 Otto F insch wri t ing around the turnof the century quotes Miklucho-Maclay and repeat sthe one to seven foot [ .3 to 2.1 m] measurement butal ters Miklucho-Maclay's weight designat ion by saying that the pieces "in the form of a mil ls tone" mayweigh up to one thousand pounds [453 kg] . 90 Volkens,who was on Ya p arou nd 1900, described the "fa [as]ranging in size from palm-sized pieces to those thatlook l ike gigantic mil ls tones reaching at maximumthree meters in diameter, which weigh ten or morecentners . . . ." 91 Salesius, a Catholic priest workingin Ya p aro un d 1900, recorded th at "the circumferenceof the stones varied between the size of a thaler orpalm of a hand to that of large mil ls tones one to oneand a half meters and more in diameter." 92

It would seem from the above tha t foreign observersoften used their own jud gm en t as an instru me nt ofmeasurement . We see a similar approach taken whenforeigners discuss the value of rai. Otto Lii t je, while

com piling his dissertation in 1906 and per ha psusing some of the sources quoted above, said the"mil lstones" measured one half to two meters and the"value was establ ished by the size and way of produc t i on . " 93 The implicat ion, which continues eventoday, is that the larger the stone, the greater i tsvalue. The New York market also seems to establ ishprice by the size rather than historical data. 9 4 P erhapsthis is because size is a known fac tor! Ak ira M ats um urawrote , dur ing the Japanese occupat ion , that the s tonemoney wheels were usual ly 30 to 55 cent imeters indiameter, though some were found that measured 90centimeters to 1.20 meters. "In rare cases, the diameter reaches 3.50 me ters." He m entione d the twoext remes : a p iece by the roads ide near Tomi l , whichmeasured 1.93 meters, and one that he obtained witha diameter of 7.3 cent imeters. 90

Quarrying and Shipping Pract icesQuarrying of the stones must have been an almostsup erhu ma n task. A Catholic priest repor ted in 1900that a local Yapese legend had those in Hell condemned to breaking stones on Palau. 96 Whether th i swas a local understanding of afterl i fe or whether theChrist ian foreigners put the money makers in thislight in order to illustrate their theological point, Iam not sure. At any rate, to at tack a stone mountainof Palau with any kind of hand tool would seem to

be the most difficult of tasks. This may partiallyaccount for the earl ier pieces being small . The Yapesedesire for the foreign iron avai lable on Palau, whichwe have discussed, could in part be at t ributed tothis need.Yapese men original ly went to Palau in canoes.They were experienced sai lors and able navigators,though the trip itself involved the risk of life. Thedistance from Yap to Palau is approximately 402kilometers (250 miles). In 1865, Tete ns re ported tenmen return ing to Yap on his ship. Presum ably theyhad ini t ial ly come to Palau via canoe.Otto Finsch reported that in 1882 Kubary sawfour hundred men in the quarr ies on Koror . 9 7 Mul l e rsays Ku bar y found 400 quarr iesn ot four hu ndred

men, but this would seem unlikely.98 Original ly themen who went to quarry the money went wi th thechief 's permission. When the stones were returned toYap they were distributed by the chief who retainedthe larger ones and two-fifths of the smaller ones forhimself.99 This al lotm ent is not unl ike the chiefs

5 72 -5 09 0 - 7 5 - 3


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10 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGYshare in copra p rodu ction found in some islands eventoday. In 1875 Rober t son note d:

Unt i l r ecen t ly the na t ives o f Uap v i s i t ( t he Pe l l ews ) in canoes .R e c e n d y , h o w e v e r , t h e n u m b e r o f E u r o p e a n v e ss e ls t r a d i n g t othes e i s l ands has been g r ea t e r t han fo rmer ly and pas s ages a r er e a d i l y g r a n t e d t o is l a n d e r s t o a n d f r o m U a p t o t h e P e l l e w sw h e r e t h e y d i g o u t a n d f a s h i o n w h a t s e r v e s t h e m a sc u r r e n c y . .10

At the t ime of Mii l ler 's wri t ing, each Yapese "wentindividual ly or sent his bondsman for him." 101 W i t hthe ready avai labi l i ty of foreign ships any man couldseek his own passage and hew ou t his own stone mo ney.

Some vest iges of former regal privi leges extendedinto the twentieth century. The history of the largepiece owned and exhib i ted by the Depar tment ofAn thropo logy of the Smithsonian In st i tut ion reco rdsres t ra in t s imposed upon the commoner . This p iecewas quarr ied by Mr. You of Kaday whi le he andChief Rangnibay of Tolpong were on Palau Is land a tt he m oney quar ry :

A t t h a t t i m e o n ly o n e s m a l l G e r m a n s t e a m s h i p w a s a v a i l a b l eto hau l mo ney . A s ys t em of p r io r i t i es was in e f fec t whic h g avef ir st s h i p p i n g p r i o r i t y t o h i g h - r a n k i n g Y a p e s e , r e l e g a t i n g t h er an k and f il e t o s econ d p lace . Q ui t e o f t en the l a t t e r nev er go tt h e i r m o n e y s h i p p e d . 1 0 2

Rai were often given individual names. Inez DeBeauclair , an anthropologist who l ived on Yap fromM ar ch 1961 to Ja nu ar y 1962, s tated that she found aname might be that of the chief who had givenpermission to sail to Palau or that of the canoe inwhich the piece had been shipped. She also mentionedthat the name of the maker might be used if he diedduring the work in Palau or perished at sea.10 3 F ranzHernsheim, Consul of the Marshal ls who travel ledthro ugh ou t Microne sia, wrote in 1884 tha t the olders tones had engraved on them the " na m es " of thosewho quarr ied and sh ipped the p iece to Yap. 10 4 I havefound no evidence elsewhere of this custom and amnot aware of s tones that have wri t ings on them.Einzig, however, repeats Hernsheim.10 5 Rai n a m e daf ter commoners probably increased once Yapesebegan to go to Palau on their own rather than as amember of a sanct ioned par ty . Obtain ing moneybecame a more individual affair and the ownershipof this money also became more individual over theyears.

The aragoni te most in demand was the s tone mostdifficul t to work, which probably explains i ts value."The s t reaked aragoni te of a brownish chocolatecolor and the milky white stone with small crystals"was preferred.10 6 The locat ions of the quarries were

often qu i te inaccessible so tha t men we re requir ed tobuild special frameworks. The best made stones reportedly are those which are thicker at the center holeand slope towards the rim.1 0 7 Th ere i s one such unusual ly th ick p iece in the Depar tment of Anthropology, Na t ional Mu seum of Na tura l His tory ,Smi thsonian Ins t i tu t ion .1 0 8 It is the darkest of thestones in that col lect ion, almost chocolate brown incolor. With the early stones the center hole was madeby using a "shel l adze (gi) and then dr i l l ed wi th areef-stone used as a fire-drill." 109 De Beauclair saysthat the procedure requi red a great deal of t ime andthus "there are only a few pieces of that kind on thei s land ." u o Relat ive to the overal l number there wereprobably few made with these early tools . Before theuse of iron the surface of the stones was polished withpumice.11 1 The surface tex ture and appearance of ra ivary great ly. The change in tools and techniques ofquarrying over the years may explain these differences. The larger piece in the Division of Numismat ics , Nat ional Museum of His tory and Technology,Smithso nian I nst i tu t ion, is pol ished to a very sm ooth,almost enamel-l ike surface. This is also t rue of thoseowned by t he Tokyo Na t i ona l Mus eum , t he LannanFoundat ion , and the Pennsylvania Univers i ty museum. The surfaces of almost all of these stones are alsostepped or smoothed into two dist inct planes. Usual lyboth sides of a ra i are s imi lar in appearance, thoughthe smaller of the two stones on exhibi t in the NationalMu seum of Na tural His tory , has only one side s tepped.Many large specimens , as those owned by the ChaseManhat tan Bank in New York Ci ty , the l arge p ieceon exhib i t in the Nat ional Museum of Natural His tory, the largest of the pieces in the Ub erse e-M useu m,Bremen, and the one in the Svenska Handelsbankenin S tockholm, are ex t remely rough and porousin surface appearance and are not s tepped. A d i s t inct ive feature of the Leiden stone is a groove aroundthe l ip of the center. One example held by the Depa r t m en t o f An t h ropo l ogy , Na t i ona l M us eum o fNatural His tory , has rough, whi t i sh marks on thesurface as if inscribed by an iron file.11 2 This piece isextremely dark in color, verging on brown, and alsohas a spark l ing appearance. The rough, porousstones tend towards the creamy colors and are dul lin finish.

Mul ler found that before the days when theforeigners ' t ransportat ion was ut i l ized, the stoneswere drifted out to sea on large bamboo rafts andin a matter of days were picked up by the canoesfor towing to Yap. 11 3 If the canoe and raft arrived


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NUMBER 23 11home, the large pieces had to be deposi ted at a givenplace, usual ly the failu or men's house. A story firsttold by Will iam Furness reported a large ra i on Yapwhich was complete ly submerged under water , yetthe ownership and purchas ing power was wel l knownin the community.1 14 Most mat ters are commonknowledge and secrets among local people are rare;thus theft of ra i is relat ively unknown.

One sometimes hears in the is lands that the stonesfrom Guam are more valuable than those f rom Palaubecause of the distance and hardship in t ransport ingthem.11 5 Muller ment ions that O 'Keefe brought somearagoni te f rom Guam. The fact that such werebrought in European ships without risk of l i fe andat this late date would deflate the value of the Guamstones. De Beauclair states that only a few pieceswere quarried on Guam and that the German officialsat the beginning of World War I sent the shipGermania to return the stone masons and their productsto Yap.11 6 It is interest ing that the large stone nowexhibi ted by the Smithsonian Inst i tut ion (rai n u m b e r100) was t ransported from Palau to Yap on thissame ship.11 7

Fran Defngin, a Yapese District anthropologist ,told the wri ter that the German administrat ion in1899 issued an order to cease the quarrying of stonemoney on Palau. This order, he stated, was aimedat O'Kee fe in hopes of jeop ard izing his mo nopolyand to help the German traders succeed in theirbusiness ventures on Y ap. I t was also hoped th at theorder in preventing the younger men from travel ingoutside of Yap would provide more able bodies forroad building and other labor projects . Defnginstated that the acquisi t ion of s tones from Guam wasin i t i a ted by O'Keefe to counteract the Germanhost i l i ty to the t rade. This order must not have beena far-reaching one, for there are reports of the Germanships carrying stones from Palau short ly thereafter.11 8

Durin g the Japa nese per iod , a survey was ma deshowing that in 1929 there were 13,281 pieces ofstone money in the possession of the natives of Yap. 11 9By 1965 De Beauclair est imated that this number hadbeen reduced to about one-half. The greatest losswas caused by World War II when the stone diskswere broken, smashed, used for anchors, or becamepart of a defense wall . Since that t ime strong typhoonsand floods have also taken their toll and left manyburied o r covered by jungle. 12 0

Local UsesLarge pieces of ra i are frequently found outside the

failu. Furness said early in the century that "thesmaller, more portable 'coins ' were used for thepurchase of fish from the failu."

121The m oney wasdeposi ted on the ground near the failu possiblyseveral days before the fishermen returned. It remained until the owner received a gift of fish. 122Via the i s land type of "quiet communicat ion" i twould simply be known who left the money and towhom the fish would go. The stone disks became theproperty of the failu. The men of the failu also received stone money as remunerat ion for their workin building houses.12 3

Though the s tones might have been p laced outs idethe men's house, they did not necessari ly remainthere as a "decorat ive bank." There seems to havebeen what one might t erm a "ci rcula t ing economicsystem." Rai left the failu as pa ym en t for fishingeq uip m ent , canoes, for pigs or for a feast. Eve nfest ivals and dances, which const i tuted a great partof the Yapese life, called for the exchange of rai.Each affair involved an unspoken reciprocal agreement . The host chief and vi l lage that presented thera i would in t ime and in turn be the guests andrecipients.12 4

The arts also had a place within this monetarysystem. There is a record of the payment of fourstones "each of which was so large that two men couldjust s t retch around i t" for the choreography of fourseparate dances .12 5 Dance groups might even specifyin their songs the name of what they desired in theway of gifts. The distribution of gifts was an integralpart of many of the dances and, thus, of the fest ivals .Dance groups often competed for gifts of money. 12 6Villages holding these affairs were expected to pay;but , as noted above, al l such act ions were reciprocal .T rad i t i on dem anded r epaym en t .Not only friend but also foe figured into the moneygiving. Rob ertson, t ravel ing in 1875, observed tha tthe principle uses of "the large stones in the shapeof a mil l s tone" was for money to pay war indemnit iesand the funeral expenses of the chiefs.12 7 Less thanten years later another t raveler to Yap, ConsulHernsheim, indicated that in war the s tone wouldbuy the assistance of a neutral t r ibe.12 8 Such debtsand payments would involve the vi l lage as a groupvia the chief.

Rai was used as compensation for the family of amispil (the woman who resided in the/a?7u). 12 9 Furness


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12 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTOR Y AND TEC HNOLOGYwas told that "well-finished/*z about four feet [1.2 m]in d iameter" was usual ly paid e i ther to the parents ofth e mispil or to the chief of her village. 13 0 Chris t i an , whomust have been a real romant ic , s t a ted that " thereason that the stone wheels are pi led at the foot ofthese structures (the failu) is that the Mespil may inlooking upon them remember that they themselveswere bought wi th great pr ice , and must prove themselves wo rthy of the ho no ur conferred on the m ." 131In expressing the many occasions for spending moneythat a Yapese exper ienced , Mul ler sa id " that even thefair sex in the clubhouses is not there for fre e." 132Money had to be spent for the mispil so the men of thefailu fi rst had to earn the money. If they went fishingthe canoe in which they went cos t money. Money wasa driving force and this fact does not seem to havedrast ical ly changed over the years. In 1949, FrancisMahoney, evaluat ing the compel l ing forces of theisland psychology, s tated that al l groups that weretested "placed a strong posi t ive valuat ion on hardwork and m oney -m ak i ng . " 133

Individual , as well as group, need for money was areal par t of the Yapese l i fe . Mahoney made the poin tin his pap er tha t the is lander was a conformist .13 4Par t icu lar th ings were expected of an indiv idual andone needed stone money in order to conform. A manmust be ornamented . He had to pay the t a t tooer andthe maker of ornaments. His doctor, sorcerer, evenpr ies t would want monetary compensat ion . Senff tcommented in the ear ly par t of the century that"w hat eve r could be provid ed by his fellow co untr ymen, the Yapese pays for wi th Yap money." 135

There were t imes when one needed money for thepurc hase of food in this subsistence econom y. H ern sheim stated that a small rai, the size of a small plateand th ick as an upper arm, would buy a fami ly 'smonthly supply of fish, yams, and taro. 13 6 I imaginethat this price was reported to Hernsheim only as anexample of the food which could be purchased. Certainly there were special occasions, such as festivalsor funerals , which would necessi tate the purchase offood in order to serve the many guests . Normally,though, a family would sustain i tself from their ownland and would not use the valuable ra i for dai lyneeds.

M arr ia ge i s of ten m ent ioned as a t ime when thestone money might be exchanged. I f ind l i t t le documentat ion of its use s t r ic t ly as a "br ide pr ic e ." Ko tzebu ein 1821 stated:M a r r i a g e s a r e c o n c l u d e d w i t h o u t a n y so l e m n i ti e s . A m a n

ma kes a p r es e n t t o the f a th er o f t he g i r l , cons i s t ing o f f ru i t s , f is h

a n d s i m i l a r t h i n g s . T h e v a l u e o f t h e g i f t i s a c c o r d i n g t o t h e r a n kof the f a ther o f t he b r ide . 1 3 7

Over 80 years l a ter Mul ler repor ted that the betrothal gift to the father of the bridegroom consistedof ya r or shel l money. Again , however , there werereciprocal gifts . Several months after marriage thegroom received 10 to 30 l i t t le pieces of s tone moneyfrom his father-in-la w. H e kep t tw o pieces for himselfand gave the others to his relat ives. 13 8 O n e m u s tr em em ber t ha t i n "g i v i ng" away t he r em ai n i ng ra ihe would be paying for the i t em which they wouldsoon be "giving" him. The system is almost one ofp re -paym en t .

As ment ioned previous ly , death necess i ta ted th eredis t r ibut ion of money. Mul ler repor ted that thebrothers and father of the surviving spouse gave ra ito other members of the family of the deceased. Againreciproci ty was involved for the brothers and fatherreceived shel l money in return. 1 3 9 As dea t h cam euna nn ou nce d, often the family was no t financial lyequipped to meet the burden. The borrowing ofmoney that was d i s t r ibuted a t the funeral came tohave a specia l Yapese name.1 4 0 Rai was needed asgifts for the invited guests. Senfft wrote that giftsmight represent "a value of thousands of marks ." 141The donors, however, in the course of t ime would berepaid for they would be guests at another funeral .

One of the last s tones quarried in Palau was madein 1931 and transported in 1932. It was chipped outby one Gi l imoon of Dechmur, Romi l , and g iven toF ig i r of Luwech, Rul l , "as payment for serv ices ."Gi l imoon had been exi led f rom Yap and " th i s s tonemoney enabled h im to re turn to Yap f rom AngaurIs land [Palau d i s t r i c t ] . " 142 Unfor tunate ly the s tonewas la ter used by the Jap ane se for a i rpor t cons t ruct ionand thus des t royed.

In the examples above, we have observed occas ionsfor the "g iv ing" of s tone money. I t mus t be re i t era tedthough that no p iece of money had a def in i te , unal terable value. Buying power was a lways dependentupon the social posi t ion of the buyer and the receiver,as well as the occasion for use. One would have beenexpected " to pay a b i t more to an o ld man or to aw o m a n . " 143 Kubary s a i d t ha t an exchange be t weenchiefs would involve different values than if men oflesser s tanding had been involved. 14 4 Val ue wassomewhat re la t ive in such deal ings , but i t was neverarb i t rary . Cus tom and t rad i t ion es tabl i shed a f i rmcr i ter ia of exchange.


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Foreign Interpretation of ValueWhen foreigners became involved in exchanges of

ra i with the Yapese, s ize becam e a dom inan t featureof valuat ion and quest ions of equivalence developed.Precedent for the exchange and thus the evaluat ionthat had formerly been establ ished suddenly had nobearing on the si tuat ion, for one of the part ies had noknowledge or concern for the customary but unspokent radi t ion .Captain Tetens, one of the earl iest observers, didnot place a defini te t rading price on the stones.Writing in the 1860s, he injected a qualifying note

by saying that the stones were considered to be of"g rea t va l ue . " 1 4 5Kubary must have searched for a set l imit bywhich to define the value of the stone. It appearsthat he was concerned with a t ranslat ion of Yapesevalue in to one that could be comprehended by theEuropean. What he saw and learned had to beunderstood by the Godeffroy family and the cosmopol i t an readers of thei r museum publ icat ions .During his first visit he stated that the stones wereof "h igh value." 1 4 6 Late r in 1889 he said, "eve nafter O'Keefe the value of a stone mea suring threehand spans remained constant , that is a s tone thatsize was worth one pig." 1 47 In the next century thisvaluat ion remained the accepted foreign rate.Ku ba ry further observed tha t a s ix foot [1.8 m]piece might be valued at one common big canoeor Palau necklace. Later in his paper, when discussingYapese loan interest rates, he qual ified his s tatementsby observing that values in al l exchanges depend uponwho is the lender and who is the borrower. 14 8 H ewas not the fi rst to note this phenomenon, forKotze bue in 1821 com mented on marr iage presents :"The value of the gift is according to the rank of thefather of the bride." 149O'Keefe introduced the wholesale t rade in t ranspor t ing rai, which he rendered in exchange formarketable goods , such as copra and beche-de-mer .He was not "buying" or "sel l ing" wi th the s tones .He only retained them unti l they were col lected bytheir owners and he was paid for his service in copra.The value placed on stone money pieces by theforeigners is the only indicat ion we have today of the

foreign "rate of exchange" of these i tems. Sl idingscales of local value have been discussed in the previouschapter. I t is interest ing to look at the foreign valuesplaced on ra i over the years.In 1877, Captain Ravnkilde gave to the DanishNational Museum a piece of s tone money 29 by 24centimeters. At that t ime the est imated value placedon the piece was ten Danish crowns. 15 0 One year l a ter ,Miklucho-Maclay , the Russ ian t raveler who v i s i t edYap, wrote that "many of the stone pieces have avalue of many hundred dol lars . " 1 51 The Mus eum fu r

Volkerkunde a t F rankfur t , Germ any, has a p iece thatwas col lected by August Mockel , who visi ted Yapbetween 1879 and 1883. He com me nted:T h e Y a p e s e I s la n d e r s fe t c h th e s t o n e f r o m C o n o r e a n d

wo ik i t i n to d i s cs of d i f f e r en t s i ze . Th es e a r e then t ake n to Y apby r a f t and the b ig ones o f h igh va lue a r e pu t up a t t he hous esof the i r pos s es s or s . The s tone in ques t ion , 28 cm. in d i ameter ,r e p r e s e n t s a v a l u e o f a b o u t 4 0 m a r k . T h e s t o n e i s a r a g o n i t e .I n P a l a u - l a n g u a g e i t i s c a l l e d p a l o n y . 1 5 2

Not al l visi tors , of course, placed a European valueon rai. Carl Edward Meinicke, who publ i shed h i sDie Inseln des Stillen Oceans in 1876, only describedthem.15 3 In 1885 Don Emil io Butron y de la Sernamerely remarked that "money sat isfies the king hist r i bu t e . " lo 4 Chris t i an was concerned wi th the "greatprice" paid for the mispil by the men of the/az/u. 1 5 5

Consul Hernsheim wrote in the 1880s that a smallstone might purchase a family 's food for one month. 15 6In 1897, when making a gift of a s tone measuring38 cent imeters to the Mu seu m fur V olke rkun de inBerl in, he equated i ts value to that of "a piece ofshel l money of the value of DM10 [ten Deutschem a r k ] . " 157

A piece measuring 24 cent imeters was given tothe Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden, in 1896by M r. P .K.A. Me erkam p van Em bden , Consul ofthe Nether lands in Mani la . Remarks made a t thatt ime, perhaps by Mr. Meerkamp, in re la t ion to thepayment for the p iece equate the value as that "ofa sack of copra equal l ing an amount of ca. D.F1. 1,50[about one and one half Dutch florin]." 158In 1903 Senfft spoke of ra i in relat ion to burialri tes . "Gifts represent the value of thousands of

13


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14 SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTOR Y AND TEC HNOLOGYm a r k s . " 15 9 In the same year a piece of s tone moneywas g iven by Dr . H. Hal l i er to the HamburgischesMu s eum fu r Vo l ke rkunde , Ha m b urg , Germ any . T hei tem was purchased f rom a Chief Ruipung for "aboutt en m arks . " 160 Th is figure is the sam e as th at u sedby Hernsheim in placing a value on the Berl in piecement ioned above.

Th e Smithson ian Inst i tut io n in 1908 paid $43.50to one Mr. Costenoble of Guam for a "col lect ion ofsl ing-stones, s tone axes and stone mortars from theisland of Guam and a perforated stone disk fromY a p . " 161 The 25 .5 cent imeter ra i i n t he Depar t m en tof Anthropology col lect ion is the stone disk mentionedin this accession.

Furness said in 1910 a "three span fei ought topurchase fifty baskets of food or an 80 or 100 poundpig or 1,000 coconuts." 162 His est imate of the pig andthe coconuts has since been repeated over and overagain . The p ig equivalent was f i rs t ment ioned byKubary; however , i t mus t have been Furness whopopular ized i t in America . The wri ters Paul Einzigand A. H. Quiggin repeat Furness almost forty yearslater.16 3 In 1957, Edwin H. Bryan, while curator ofthe Bernice P . Bishop Museum in Honolulu quotedFurness almost word for word. 16 4

While wri ters for numismatic periodicals havetended to inscribe the "one ra i equals one p ig"equation into the folklore of the Pacific, Furness,himself, l is ted other equivalents . He said that a threespan stone should purchase "a pearl shel l measuringthe length of the ha nd plus the width of three fingersup the wri s t . " 16 5 A ra i l arger than three span mightbu y a fifty pou nd b ag of rice, thou gh Furness ad de dthat th i s was an exorbi tan t pr ice! He had purchaseda 50-cent imeter ra i for a short-handled axe.16 6 As notedbefore, he suggested that 1000 coconuts might purchasea three span rai. For the reader 's information, i t takesapproximately three coconuts to make a pound ofcopra (6000 coconuts equal one ton of copra). Themissionary, Father Salesius, who was working in Yaparound 1900, ci ted that a ton of copra was reckonedat 120 to 260 marks depending on qual i ty.1 67 Furness '1000 coconuts would thus make a three hand spanra i worth between 20 to 43 marks a t that t ime.August Mockel 's 28-centimeter piece, now in themuseum in Frankfurt , was also recorded in 1879-1883as being worth about for ty marks . 1 68 Deprecia t ionoccurred, for twenty years later the 22-centimeter piecei n t he Ham burg m us eum was pu rchas ed fo r " abou tt en m arks . " 1 6 9 M uller, in 1908-1910, found tha t the"value of the fa gradual ly decreased because of con

t inuous accumulat ion and bet ter means of t ranspor t .A p iece measur ing one span was then worth threem a r k s . "1 7 0 In 1912 Ric hard D eeken wrote th at a20-cent imeter p iece (about one hand span) would beworth two marks .17 1 Miil ler 's assert ion concerningdecreased valuat ion is borne out by the decl ining valuesplaced on similar sized ra i found in European museumcollections.

Aki ra Matsumura, whose work was publ i shed in1918, wrote that he and his associates paid five yen onYap for "a piece sixty-eight cent imeters in diameter off ine qual i ty and good shape." In compar i son an 85-centimeter piece, which was presented by a visi t ingYapese chief to the Japanese Minister of the Navy in1915, was said by the Yapese to be worth 500 yen. 17 2This piece is now in the anthropology col lect ion ofthe Universi ty of Tokyo. 17 3

The equat ion of one ra i being equal to one p ig ,which was f irst ment ione d by Ku ba ry an d popular izedby Furness, may be found in Japanese wri t ings as well .Matsumura to ld that a p iece measur ing 68 cent i meters that he purchased was "worth a p ig weighingforty-five kg. [99.2 lbs . ] ." 174 Furnes s said his threespan disk (the wri ter would est imate this to be approximately 51-57 cm) was worth a pig of 100 pounds. 1 7 3Fat her Salesius aro und 1900 found tha t pigs wereoften given tender care by the women of Yap. Hestated that they are rarely eaten by the Yapese peoplebut of ten t raded to the Europeans . 1 7 6 In 1937 theJapanese government i ssued an ord inance which paid30 yen for a pig kept for breeding purposes. Duringtha t year only 158 yen were expen ded for that p urpo seon Yap , 70 of which we nt to Jap ane se n at ionals on theisland.17 7 It appears that i t was more profi table fora Yapese to use a pig for t rade than to col lect the30 yen from the govern men t .

During the 1930s the Japanese imposed a r ig idsecuri ty on the is lands, and reports of exchanges andpurchases of the Yapese stone money by foreigners isextremely l imited though one finds sales of the disksbetween museum s. In 1931, the S taat l iche M useu mfiir Volkerkunde in Berl in sold three pieces of ra i toThe C has e Manha t t an B ank i n New York C i t y .17 8Farran Zerbe, whose in teres t in pr imi t ive media ofexchange is wel l know n, was then cu rator of the ChaseManha t t an co l l ec t i on . Th i s New York m us eum cu r rently reports possession of only two disks.17 9 In 1935,a ra ther unrel iab le source repor ted a p iece one foot[.3 m] in d iam eter being purchase d by an Am ericanmuseum for 75 dol lars . 18 0 The cos t of the Chase


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NUMBER 23 15

1951-1973 YearsAverage size of ra i in collections outside of Yap (smallest singlestone (#64) is 3.5 cm, collected on Yap before 1906; largeststone (#95) is 228.4 cm, removed from Yap in 1964).

M an ha t tan p ieces f rom the Ber lin museum had beenwell above this figure.18 1I t was a l so dur ing the 1930s that an other prom inentcol lector of primit ive media, H. D. Gibbs, obtained a

Yapese ra i for his col lect ion. Mr. Gibbs, then Directorof the P i t t sburgh Numismat ic Museum, wrote toPennsylvania Senator David A. Reed reques t ing h i shelp in securing a ra i with the assistance of theJapanese ambassador in Washington . 18 2 T h e J a p a n e s egovernment , though involved in bui lding fort i ficat ionsin the Pacific at the t ime, wrote the senator in December 1933 that , "owing to the infrequency of steamert ravel between Ja pa n and Ya p . . i t wi l l t ake sometime." 183 By February of the next year , however , Mr.Gibbs had his specimen, the ocean transportat ion costhav ing been paid by the Jap an ese Fore ign Office inTokyo.18 4 The b i l l paid by the P i t t sburgh Numismat icMuseum to Endo and Kotachi , Inc . , for c lear ing thedisk through customs amounted to $3.56. 18 5 Thi s s am epiece was offered for sale in New York City in 1971for 500 dollars.18 6

During the period between the wars almost al leffort in the Pacific area was militarily directed. It ismiraculous that so much of the stone money escapeddestruct ion. As noted before, many were used to paveJapanese airstrips or to construct sea walls or piers .After the host i li t ies of W orld W ar I I , Yap bec am e apar t of the Tru s t Terr i tory under U ni ted S ta tes adm ini s t ra t ion . The Uni ted S ta tes Navy re ta ined r ig idsecuri ty, which i t continued to impose even after 1951when the area was turned over to the Depar tment ofthe Interior for administrat ion. Collectors and touristswere not permi t ted ent ry in to the Trus t Terr i tory ;but many stone disks did leave the is lands in thepossession of American military and civil servicepersonnel (see Table) .


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Local Interpretation of ValueA Judicia l Account

The rai monetary system has been subjected to theinfluence of foreign monetary values, resulting in aconflict between traditional and modern conceptswithin the Yapese society. These changing conceptsare exemplified in the landmark case known inMicronesia as Civil Action No. 25 (see Appendix 1).

The action commenced in the spring of 1960,when the National Bank of Detroit acquired a Yapesestone disk measuring 152.5 centimeters (5 ft) indiameter.187 On 20 Januar y 1961, a local civilaction suit was filed with the District Court of YapDistrict, Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. In

'this case, the plaintiff, Choo, charged that thedefendant, Pong, had received 125 dollars for thesale of a stone to the National Bank of Detroit.That stone, Choo maintained, rightly belonged tohim. Therefore, he demanded in compensation thetotal sum of 125 dollars or return of the same stone.On 10 April 1961, the Yap District Court requestedthat this action be transferred to the trial divisionof the Trust Territory High Court. This was doneand the case became Civil Action No. 25 on theHigh Court docket. The court's pre-trial orderprovides an invaluable account of the history ofthis piece of rai.

The following port ion of the history of the stone money isagreed upon.a . Urun and Tamangi ro, f rom Af Village, in Tamil Munici pali ty, went to the Palau Islands and obtained three piecesof stone money. They gave the larger piece to the peopleof Af Village. By agreement between them, Urun re ta inedon e of the smaller ones and T a m a n g i r o the other smallerone. The piece in question in this action is the one retainedby Urun in this division.b. Urun's house burned down and the people of Af Villagehelped him rebuild it. In payment of this assistance, Urungave the stone money now in question to the people ofAf Village.

Dur ing a "tarn" celebration given by Af Village, the peopleof Dec hum ui V illage put on a dance about people goingon a t r ip and, in appreciat ion for this dance, the peopleof Af Village gave the stone money in quest ion, amongother things, to the people of Dechumur Vi l lage and the

stone money was removed to Dechumur Vi l lage andremained there unt i l about January 15, 1960.d. Some people f rom Dechumur Vi l lage made a t r ip to P a l auand brought more s tone money of various sizes. The piecebr ough t in on this trip by T a m a g was the same size as t ha tgiven by Af Village to Dechumur Vi l lage, and this piecebr ough t in by Tamag was given to Af Village and the pieceno w in question given to T a m a g in exchange for the one hebr ough t in.e. Tamag gave the piece now in question to his brotherFazagol when the l a t ter was about to build a house. Fazagolgave this stone money to P uguu in p a y m e n t for some tinroofing for the house.f. On or abou t J anua r y 15, 1960, the defendant Pong, with agr oup of men gathered by him, removed the stone money inquestion from Dechumur Village over the protests of theplaintiff Choo who was present dur ing par t of the removal ,protested that the stone money belonged to him, and toldthem not to remove it. Later , on Pong's author izat ion, thestone money was shipped to the M oney M useum of theNational Bank of Detroi t , Michigan, in accordance wi th theagreement of sale with Pong under which he received$125.00 for the stone money.18 8

Choo, the plaintiff, claimed that the stone wasgiven to him by Puguu as "gidigen," or a type ofmarriage gift, in return for Choo's guarantee to carefor three children, which Choo's wife brought into hishome at the time of their marr iage. The defendant,Pong, claimed that Puguu had given the stone moneyin question to him in an exchange for alcohol, twopieces of shell money, and assistance. The ChiefJustice of the High Court, E. P. Furber, ruled in favorof the plaintiff Choo and ordered that he be repaidby Pong. Judge Furber's decision reads in part:1. Puguu's transfer of the stone money to Choo entirely cut offPuguu's r ights in the stone money, and any effort he mayhave made thereafter ei ther to transfer the stone money to

the defendant Pong or to confirm or establish Pong's ownership thereof was of no legal effect.2. Inasm uch as this stone money w as given to Choo as "gidigen"

under Yapese custom his rights in it axe presumably held incommon wi th cer ta in of his relatives and not by him alone.I t is believed, however, that , as against the defendant Pong,the plaintiff Choo is enti t led to speak for his ent i re groupand that Pong is accountable to C hoo for the entire sumwhich he received for the stone money regardless of w h a tobligations Choo m

Gillilland Stone Money of Yap

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