New Britain herald., 1919-08-29
LAND OF YAP HAS
 PRIMITIVE MONEY
t. 5. Acquisition PeopIed by UD-
 educated Race


 States as a reparation for the sinking of the Lusitania and as H wireless or cable station, the following bulletin is issued by the National Geographic society: |
 '4ap, the west crnmOSt of the Wcst- crn Caroline Islands, is situated about 300 miles southwest of Guam and 800 miles east of the Island of MindanO of the Philippine group. It has a pop ulation of about seven thousand and was the administrative center for the Western CaroInes, the poleW and the laurone Islands. The Germans had made plans 10 locate a wireless sta tiOn there hLt were prevented when Australian troops ca blurred the islands in October, 1914.
 "Yap is strangely old and strangely up to dGte. It's inhabitants arc still in the stone age of progress and COpra is almost the only export but there is a feature m their life that seems as ul- tra-modcrn as the latest socialist dOr- trines.
 'On the island of Yap, the natives are strict prohibitionists. made so by the race that made Pilsen and Munich famous. Children belong to the com munity, are frequently adopted or eX- changed, and throw off parental con- trol at an early age. Bachelor clubs, closed to the women, dot the islands What corresponds to tho Nap dress suit cannot be bought but is rented to the young beau who desires to shine in society. And since food and drink and clothes all grow on trees, where anyone can secure them, the money of the island represents labor rather than any material thing. But one can better understand the meaning or the burden of wealth when one hears that a single coin of their stone money sometimes weighs hundreds of pounds.
 "Yap, or Jap, when translated means the land, and is the only land that many of the islanders know, al- though many a native from this isl nd has been driven hundreds of miles away from his home and returned without chart or compass among isl ands where he could not speak a word of the language used. Yap is sur rounded by an atoll but is itself of volcanic origin. The only good har- Dor is TomiI Bay.
 Married and unmarried men alike belong to the club which maintains a fine fallu, or bachelor house, the host ess of which must be secured by force or cunning from some distant tribe. There she lives under a polyandrous system where no man becomes jealous and the wives of the village never ob- ject to their husbands evenings at the 'club.' If one of the men eventually marries the hostess he sets up a new home for her, but the tattoOed hands and legs which distinguished her as a miSpil or 'Quen of the club remains to prove in her weazened old age that once she was the darling of the dis trict. If the mispi shows a prefer ence for any one member of the club, that member is told to seek other fields for his social graceS and the party goes on without any bad feel ings.
 "The chief decoration of the male is a string of pink shells made into a necklace, and since no man is rich enough to own such a treasure, the best ones are loaned out for such a period as the Wearer may choose to be dressed in the height of fashion. As there arc no buttonholes, the man may wear two bouquets in each ear,
 a sort of corsage bunch in a large hole in the lower lobe and a small bOutOnniere in a smaller hole higher up in the ear. Shell cuffs made of conchs add the finishing touch to the correct attire.
 "Yap women do not wear the Ncil Their only dress iS VOluminOuS skirt made of leaves or fiber and com posed of four or five thicknesses Al- though one month IS the average life of q Woman's dress aud it is necessary for any one to sweep up a bundle of discarded dress goods after every fe- To ct111o change. But this voluminous skirt has little to do with the modesty or inmOdesty of the wearer. What cor responds to the veil of the harem beauty in Yap is thin cord of fiber which every woman, old or young, must wear about her neck at all times
 '"The large money of the island consists of milIstone-1ike disks of limestone from Babalthuap, 400 miles to the south, and one of these disks four feet in diameter is the usual price that is paid when the bachelor club abducts a new mispil. Such a piece of currency may be worth 10,- 900 cOcoanuts.
 "The small change of the island is made of shells, which the natives; car ry strung on fiber as does the China man with his cash. For external trade the cOcoanut is the common standard of exchange.
 Tt is not necessary that the Yap CroesuS should shelter his entire pile in his house. He simply lets it be known that that particular half-ton piece Of money belongs to him and no one steals it. On one occasion a very fine piece of money was ship wrecked in transportation and it's owner is credited with the wealth represented in that fine bank pile which is now reposing in a safety de- posit vault composed of 400 feet of ocean water. When the Germans