The Stone Money of Yap - Smithsonian Institution

NUMBER 23
The tribute was brought from the eastern low
islands to the high island of Yap. The Yapese power
was, in part, due to their feats of black magic. In
the early nineteenth century, Kotzebue spoke of the
threats of storms with which the Yapese terrorized
their neighbors. 40 Tetens observed, "Yap owes its
dominion over these islands primarily to religious,
mythological conceptions and fears." 41 Lessa maintains
that magic was the real threat wielded by the
Yapese. 42 With this they subjugated those who fearfully
brought tribute from the east.
Contact, at least in trade, existed directly or
indirectly between Yap and Palau to the west.
Kotzebue spoke of the trade between the islands as
the "main spring of navigation," and stated that
the curcuma root (turmeric) was "in great abundance
at Eap." 43 This root "which is rasped to a powder,
forms a considerable branch of the trade of Eap." **
Palau is then mentioned in this system of trade by
Kotzebue as the place where
the iron which the Europeans bring is exchanged for curcuma.
On the south western group of islands they exchange stuffs
for iron of which they are in want. A squadron of ten sail,
five from Magemog and five from Eap. 45
Yap had curcuma and Palau the European iron.
The Yapese from ancient times maintained suzerainty
over their eastern neighbors probably, as Lessa
pointed out, by the threat of magic. In the 1860s and
1870s, with increased European contact, the amount
of iron and then of fire arms available to Palauans
multiplied. At the same time, accounts begin to
appear of the growing importance of Palau, specifically
of Koror, as a center of European trade. "The
people of Koror, owing to the fact that foreign ships
touched only at their port, had become more powerful
than those of other districts of the Palaus. They
possessed more weapons and hence had subdued
their neighbors." 46 I have noted above that Tetens
spoke of the hostility that existed between Yap and
Palau. As centers of their individual domains they
were also, no doubt, rivals. In his statement, Tetens
implied that Palau had the upper hand and the
Yapese had to obtain consent and permisssion to
quarry the stone disks; but twenty years earlier
Cheyne told of the King of Palau sending a present
to Yap. It would appear, therefore, that political
fortunes had changed, wherein the Yapese not only
had to obtain the consent of the people of Palau to
quarry stones, but now also were forced to perform
menial tasks for their Palauan hosts. In the last quar­
ter of the nineteenth century, it was said that when
Yapese strangers came in canoes to Palau they were
treated disdainfully, because, other than personal ability, they
brought nothing with them but hunger. They were permitted
to go to the uninhabited Koheals (coral islands south of
Babeldaob) and hammer out their Argonite money, and for
occasional food offered them they were required to perfoim
services, which were willingly rendered by the enterprising sons
of Yap who were unsure of themselves on foreign soil. They
gathered firewood, carried water, built fish-weirr, and acted as
sooth sayers, doctors and conjurers. 47
In 1903 Arno Senfft wrote:
The broad, paved street of the island of Koror in Palau was
not constructed by the inhabitants of Koror but by Yapese as
payment for permission to quarry in order to manufacture
money. 48
This is a far different Yapese than the one portrayed
by the words of Cheyne and Tetens. The statement
that the Yapese were unsure of themselves on foreign
soil also seems to be in opposition to what early
writers said of Yapese trade, navigational abilities,
and conquests.
The Foreigners Come to Stay
Europeans during the mid-nineteenth century
moved throughout the Pacific, always in search of
marketable commodities, often collecting scientific
data on their way, and providing national claims for
later colonial expansion. Therefore, foreign ships in
Yap harbor were not unknown before the arrival of
Cheyne and Tetens, though they were few. 49 In the
last quarter of the century, however, strangers came
in greater numbers. Their influence soon altered the
trade and economy in a most dramatic way. In the
1860s Tetens mentioned other Europeans in the
islands: Captain Woodin, for example, who is also
named by the visiting scientist, Dr. Karl Semper. 50
Jan S. Kubary, a Pole who had been employed by
the Godeffroy firm of Hamburg and who lived first
on Palau and later on Ponape, made visits to Yap. He
first came in 1870. 51 This untrained but skillful
scientist observed the Yapese money forms and wrote
of the stone disks, of their transport, and their value
both in local and European terms. The Godeffroy
family provided such men with their means of support
and established a museum for their collections and a
journal for publication of their observations. The
smaller and less influential Hernsheim trading company,
also of Hamburg, established a branch on Yap
in 1873, 52 with Robert Friedlander stationed there as