The mirror., 1921-09-22
YAP IN TRADITION AND HISTORY

The Island of Yap has recently come
into the limelight in connection with the
action of the League of Nations, which
has delivered the mandatory of the tiny
piece of land to Japan, and refuses to re-
cede from this act despite the protests of
the United States.
Except as a cable station, the island is
virtually valueless, as copra and shells, are
about all that is exported from there.
"Yap" may sound comical to the ear,
but in the language of the Caroline Is
landers it means "the land" For to the
native Yap, his eighty-square mile bit of
land is pre-emiently "the land" There's
nothing else like it on the face of the
earth; he's as proud of it as if it COM
prised whole continent.
Yap, one of group of SIS islands, is
believed to have been, with its insular
mates, part of the Asiatic mainland. The
basis of this belief is that on some of the
islands are buildings of such vast pro-
portions that it is inconceivable that they
could have been eretced to crown any
such small morses of land.
These cyclopean structure on megalithic
(big stone) monuments are ascribed to a
period of architecture long antedating the
historic ages of man. One of them has a
main portion quadrangular in shape, 200
feet on each side, with inner courts walls
forty feet high and eighteen feet thick.
Many of the blocks are twenty-five feet
long and eight feet in diameter and weigh
four tons.
Yap's population is about 1000 natives.
They belong to that part of the Malay
lace known as .Micronesians, which means
"small island dwellers." They are some
what smaller in stature than their broth
rem of the Pollynesian ("many-island')
type and are CONSPICUOUS also for the great
length of skull from forehead to back.
Yap is about $50 miles from Guam, one
of the Pacific possessions of the United
States and this, in turn, is 1857 miles
from Honolulu, whence the distance is
$500 miles to San Francisco. One of the
three cables running out of Yap bridges
these distances.
Another cable goes from Yap to Shang-
hal, about 500 miles, and third. one from
Yap to Menado, in the Dutch East Indies.
The distance from Yokohama, Japan, to
Yap, is little more than 1000 miles.
The native Yap inhabitant is polyan-
drous, that is, he believes that the proper
thing in domestic etiquette is for women
to have many husbands Accordingly
there are many bachelor clubs established
throughout the island, each presided over
by "queen." To distinguish her from
other women her arms and legs are tat
tooed; and aged women who have retired
from the "queenship" take much pride in
these tattoo marks, which give them
high social prestige.
Queens are usually acquired from neigh
boring islands by abduction paying COM
renSating sum OF money settled upon by
the chief. These payments are made in
rocks. The Yaps have inherited from pre-
historic ancestors the cyclopean vastness
of ideas, at least in regard to money, for
the coins are of stone from six inches to
twelve feet in diameter, and some of the
latter millstonelike "coins" weigh fully
five tons.
Most of the natives are converted to
Christianity. They are well-developed
both physically and mentally, but have
curious notions of the propriety of things.
For instance, modesty in women is de-
termined, not by any standards of dress
measurements or transparency OF material
worn, but by the presence or absence of a
thin fbrous thread functioning as sort