The Stone Money of Yap - Smithsonian Institution

NUMBER 23
This case, which was heard by the court in 1961,
collaborates reports of several customs and uses of
the stone money which were mentioned at the beginning
of the century by Muller and others: joint
ownership, the use of the stone as a type of promissory
note, as payment for a dance, and as payment for
material goods, i.e., the housing materials and
beverages previously mentioned. Even though the
court in its decisions cited that "under Yapese
custom his rights in it are presumbaly held in common
with certain of his relatives and not by him alone,"
Choo and Pong as individuals alone were involved
•in the suit. They claimed ownership for themselves.
Pong alone was responsible for the imposed fee.
This manner of thinking and wording, as evidenced
in the trial records, indicates evolution of custom
and practice.
The history of this same rai as told by the present
owner, the National Bank of Detroit, is not the same
as that found in the pre-trial order of the High Court
of the Trust Territory. The supervisor of the Money
Museum reports:
The stone was quarried in Babelthaup Island, Palau, by an
expedition led by a Yap named Falluwem, a member of the
ranking Miniw household in the Village of Teb in the Tomil
District of Yap Island. He was accompanied by low-caste
laborers from Af Village. The expedition took place between
1875 and 1885. Upon his return to Yap, Falluwem presented
the piece of Af Village as payment to his laborers. Shortly
after, Af Village presented the rai to Dechumur Village in
exchange for services, and Dechumur passed it on to a highranking
chief named Gubgol. During the 1920s Gubgol gave
it to a man from Talangith in exchange foi building materials,
who presented it to his daughter. Upon her death the rai
passed to her surviving husband and children. All these transactions
took place without moving the stone from its original
location in Af Village, Tomil District. 190
The writer does not know why their historical
records differ from those found in Civil Action
Number 25. 191
Transfer of Traditional Yapese Monies
The concept of a cash economy with set values has
always been foreign to island society, where the
importance of any given item often relates more to
cultural and social factors. Even though the item is or
was used as a medium of exchange, any concept of
constant value must be carefully weighed. Adjustment
to a certain monetary exchange equivalent is a learned
process. In the case of Yap, with their accommodation
to the mark, the yen, and the dollar, this adjustment
has taken place three times in our century.
In the 1960s, the Yapese leaders placed on their rai
a value of 25 dollars per diameter foot and the
National Bank of Detroit paid that price for their
stone. In 1962 this was the price when the Smithsonian
Institution negotiated the purchase of their largest
stone now on exhibit in the National Museum of
Natural History. Twenty-five dollars was an often
quoted value in the islands in the 1950s and early
1960s. When the Trust Territory government attempted
to settle land claims in the 1950s its offer
was 25 dollars per acre per year for rental. Twenty-five
dollars per coconut tree was that demanded by the
islander in damage claims. "Twenty-five dollars per"
was the convenient price in dealings with the foreigner.
Local philosophy was one of "that price which worked
for one item should work for others." This attitude
towards foreign currency was noted early in the
twentieth century by Salesius who wrote that when
the German administration had forbidden the sale of
alcoholic beverages but allowed the consumption on
a few specific days, the islander paid for the beverage
on these days with German coins. He had to save
these coins and to do this he sold everything he had
for hard cash:
then he would demand "one peso" or "two marks" for
every trivial thing and would be astonished if one did not pay
him for every little fish the equivalent of the weight in silver. 192
The Yapese often overpaid as well as over-demanded
when bartering with the foreigners. Furness wrote of
an extravagent deal where " Old Ronoboi paid
twenty thousand coconuts for a cooking stove ' made
in Germany' of thin sheet-iron." 193 At that time
20,000 coconuts would have brought approximately
420 to 910 marks. 194 Barter, of course, had always
been known in the islands and as with local items the
foreigners' imports slowly came to represent known
values. 195 This trade, however, was apart from the real
economy of the island. Salesius noted that a trade item
such as copra " represents only an object of trade, not
a piece of money with an ideal value, like stone and
shell money with which to buy other things, but
merely barter." 196 He felt:
It would be a mistake, however, to believe that pure com­
mercial trade does not exist on Yap. On the contrary, it most
certainly does, since there are various kinds of real money on
Yap, i.e., objects that have no practical and use value apart
from their value as a medium of exchange and thus are purely
tender . as the famous "stone money" . - 197
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