Photo Credit : Flickr userannamatic3000
If you wanted to be a money box robber on Yap , you ’d call for a forklift and a Hart Crane , along with an 18 - wheeler to make your pickup . That ’s because for centuries , the main course of currentness on this lilliputian Micronesian island was pit . Very declamatory stones . Looking like Claes Oldenburg sculptures of outsized beigel , the Edward Durell Stone – orrai , as they ’re call – can stand as mellow as ten feet and count several net ton each .
While these carved Stone may not look like big bucks to an outsider , some have enough economic value to buy a new house .
Of course , all currency , from beads to spices to paper bearing pictures of utter presidents , carries an arbitrary denomination . It ’s money because a refinement says it is . And often , in the commencement , it ’s money because it ’s pleasing to the optic . remember of silver and Au . That ’s the direction it was with the Lucy Stone on Yap .
Photo Credit : Flickr userDavid Weekly
In sentence , the village on Yap were launching regular expeditions to Palau to bring back more rai . For the right to quarry on their island , Palau residents were paid with various services , plus goods like beadwork and coconut . As their mining outgrowth became more refined , the Yapese started carve the limestone into disks with holes , presumptively because they were easy to carry . Poles were inserted through the centers and sailors hauled them to waiting boats . In the nineteenth hundred , the size of it of the rai grew markedly , as European monger equipped Yap natives with more modern instrument .
The Value of a Giant Stone With a Hole In It
Though many of the large Harlan Stone bet like , not all rai is of equal value . Its Charles Frederick Worth depends on several factors . The first has to do with its cradle . How many life story were lose in ship the Harlan Stone to Yap ? In the onetime day , it was a treacherous journey by ocean to obtain the stones . Beyond the minelaying and transportation across three hundred miles , there was also a band of contention between village top dog , resulting in fights to guarantee the rai .
The second factor has to do with who expose a particular rock . experience a famous sailor ’s name attached to it , or the dedication of a honcho who buy at the excavation misstep , can greatly increase the rai ’s value . There ’s also the topic of craftsmanship . Many of the new rai stone are highly polished with smooth edges , a look that ’s been achieved with import modern metal tools . The older I. F. Stone , less polished and rough - hand-hewn , were finish with homegrown shell tools , which gives them a higher value .
Once transport to Yap , the gem were rarely prompt . In fact , unlike most currency in the world , the rai were not hidden in banks , but in public displayed , in ceremonial earth and hamlet centers . Even if their ownership changed bridge player from village to settlement , the Isidor Feinstein Stone remain in situation , because everyone understood who owned them . Though there ’s no direct analogue in our own currency , rai are a bite like bond or certificates of repository . They bring in value over time , and are used only for major purchase .
For smaller , everyday transactions , there are other chassis of money on Yap , including turmeric , bone shell , banana fiber mat and mortars and pestle . And since the former 1990s , the American dollar and the Euro have institute their way onto the island via a burgeoning new tourist swap .
Elsewhere on the Island…
No word on how much it costs per can , but chance are its somewhere between a pinch of Curcuma domestica and a ten - fundament rai .
