The Stone Money of Yap - Smithsonian Institution

NUMBER 23
The idea of stone disks as a medium of exchange
grew in isolation on Yap. The form of the earliest
disks on Yap, be they shell or stone, appear to have
exploded to gigantic proportions with the influx of
the foreigners.
The growth of the custom of stone money on Yap
is a story of a society in transition. The place of the
disks in the early part of the nineteenth century seems
to have been exclusive to the chiefs as reported by
Kotzebue and others. In the 1840s, when Cheyne
visited Yap, the stones were "very rare." The gift
of one was enough to cause the chief of another
district to become jealous. It has been reported by
De Beauclair that there are few pieces of rai on Yap
made by the early difficult process of quarrying with
primitive tools. In 1865 Tetens said that "only a
limited amount of this coinage may be made at one
time, thus assuring a controlled financial system."
In the last half of that century the arrival of the
foreigners with ships for transportation and iron tools
for quarrying greatly proliferated the custom. Stones
were numerous and available and commoners made
the trip to Palau for their own self interest. O'Keefe
established trade based on his transportation of the
stones.
In 1843, the stones were a scarce item. In 1929, a
span of 86 years, the Japanese government counted
13,281 stones on the island. The population of Yap,
interestingly enough, was 7808 in 1899, while in 1925
it had decreased to 4401. 231 If one subtracts 12,000
stones from the Japanese count of 13,281, leaving
1281 stones on Yap in 1843, which would seem a great
number, then it can be inferred that 12,000 were
transported from Palau over a period of 86 years; this
would mean an average of 139 stones a year. The
Germans cut off the quarrying of stones in 1899,
though obviously unsuccessfully. The 12,000 stone
volume implies that one new stone was added to the
Yapese money bank every 2.48 days for 86 years.
Compared with the amount of shipping now available
in the Trust Territory, this volume of shipping would
appear impossible to duplicate.
The marked increase in the pace of activities that
occurred with the arrival of foreigners during the
40-year period, 1875 to 1915, must have meant a
tremendous change of life style for the Yapese, a
change which could only now be duplicated with the
advent of self government and increased tourism on
Yap. The often stated hypothesis that the Yapese are
conservative and slow to change obviously is open to
challenge.
21