Ethnography of Micronesia. 165 



2). In some cases, the pieces found in one place number 

 about a Imndred (PL XXIV, fig. 2). As mentioned elsewhere, 

 some pieces lie, though rarely, by the roadside. Nobody, it is 

 said, steals or destroys them. And those pieces of stone money, 

 of which a chief or village is proud, give an index to the Avealth 

 possessed by them. Indeed, the stone money, together with the 

 large buildings, belong to the " sights " of the West Carohne 

 Islands. In Yap, the pieces are used for the same purpose as 

 coins in civiUzed countries, in buying and selling, or as a gift 

 when celebrating the completion of a building or on the occasion 

 of death. Chiefs naturally come to possess much stone money, 

 since they can afford to manufacture the pieces or have large 

 quantities of goods to sell. As regards the many pieces about the 

 club-house, they perhaps represent the prices obtained for fish and 

 shell -fish caught by the bachelors and which they sold at the 

 club-house, and also as remuneration for their labour in assisting in 

 building houses. Tluis, club-houses have their own property. The 

 native word for the club-house is fe-haij, which means the " house 

 of stone money," a term chosen to express in all probability the 

 plentifulness of this money usually owned by club-houses. 



We are told, however, that at present the stone money is 

 rather for show than for use. The writer is of opinion that from 

 the beginning it served the double purpose of currency and orna- 

 ment, the latter idea even predominating. It is needless to say 

 that barter, as still practised among wild tribes, w^as the earliest 

 form of trade. In the next stage of development, some valuable 

 tilings were chosen as medium for facilitating exchange. They 

 would naturally be objects which the tribe or tribes desired to 

 pos?e^>s ; they consisted namely, of jewels, feathers for ornamental 

 purposes, etc., in some regions, while in other regions clothing. 



