Let’s learn more about Micronesia…. why not Yap? The first settlers of Yap came from Eastern Indonesian or the Philippines some time before 1500 B.C. and over the centuries developed an intricate society based upon a complicated caste system with at least seven ranked tiers. An entire village would have a particular rank in the caste hierarchy and would move up or down depending on their success or failure in conflicts between villages. Lower ranked villages would have to pay money to higher ranked villages and sometimes faced dietary restrictions because of their caste level (i.e. the higher cast villages would forbid them from eating the best fish from the sea). The village ranking system was fluid, with villages moving up and down either quickly or over many years, until the Germans took power in the late 19th century and codified the caste ranking they found when they arrived.
In addition to being known as a group of islands still rich in Micronesian culture, Yap is still well-known for its unique practice of using stone money. Starting in ancient times Yapese sailors mined shiny quartz-like stones from islands far away, such as Palau, and brought them back to Yap to use as money. Some of the stones were tiny but most were large and cumbersome, some stretching several feet across. Because obtaining them was quite difficult these early stones kept a high value and only served as a medium of exchange for substantial purchases. When people bought something with stones they might physically give them to the person who sold them the object in question, though with the larger stones in particular the stone would stay sitting exactly where it was and everyone would just understand it had changed owners.Today the Yapese use the U.S. dollar as their currency, though they do still use stone money in some cultural or traditional transactions.
