You Can't Take It With You-Not From Yap, Anyway!

The stone money of Yap, in the Caroline islands of Micronesia, is a famous example of native custom money. It's not made any more but it is still valued by the Yapese, who probably have retained more of their own traditions than the people of any other Micronesian district. The Yap stone money, which comes in all sizes, including the giant size photographed recently at left alongside Yap's Deputy District Administrator, Mr. Carl Heine, cannot now be removed from Yap by law, because too much of it was disappearing into overseas collections. Its value on Yap is in gift exchanges. The stone money was made by the Yapese in the neighbouring islands of Palau, and transported long distances across the open sea by canoe—hence its comparative scarcity and thus its value.