A rai stone (), or fei stone,

Rai stones were quarried on several of the Micronesian islands, mainly Palau, but briefly on Guam as well. The practice stopped in the early 20th century. Today around 6,000 large rai stones are on the island, and several can be seen in museums worldwide.

The stones were highly valued by the Yapese and used for important ceremonial gifts. The ownership of a large stone, which would be too difficult to move, was established by its history as recorded in oral tradition rather than by its location. Appending a transfer to the oral history of the stone thus effected a change of ownership. In the 20th century, the name "fei" fell into disuse. In the best-worked ones, the thickness gradually decreases from the center to the rim or in two or three steps. The central hole has about 1/6 of the diameter of the stone. Sometimes there are additional holes off center. The diameter varies from to , but most are between .

The stone occurs in Palau as deposits slowly formed on the walls of some caves by percolating rainwater (speleothems, specifically flowstones). Tectonic activity millions of years ago lifted limestone deposits out of the sea, eroded by rainwater, forming a typical cave-riled karst geology.

Use and value

Rai stones were, and still are, used in rare important social transactions, such as marriage, inheritance, political deals, sign of an alliance, ransom of the battle dead, or, rarely, in exchange for food. In another version, the discovery expedition was headed by Anagumang and a Fatha'an from Yap's Rull island.

A different legend attributes the discovery to chance by a group of fishermen driven to Palau by a storm. According to one variant, they fashioned a fish from the local sparkling stone and took it to the king of Rull as a substitute for the fish they failed to catch.

Archaeological and anthropological evidence

alt=Map of Yap, Palau, and nearby islands.|thumb|Map of Yap, Palau, and nearby islands

It is unknown how long the rai stones have been used in Yap. Flat rocks up to 2000 years old have been found there, but the oldest does not resemble today's rai stones, and how they were used is not known.

Calcite speleothems do not occur on the Yap islands, which consist mostly of metamorphic rock rather than limestone. However, there are small veins of marble, a crystalline calcite rock of metamorphic origin, that has a sparkling appearance similar to that of the Palau flowstones. It has been conjectured that the Yapese originally came to value crystalline calcite from these sources before discovering the much more abundant deposits in the Palau caves.

Archaeologists have identified quarries used by the Yapese in a relatively small region of Palau, spanning the southern end of Babeldaob and the northern part of Koror. Some rai stones were found elsewhere in Palau, but the quarries, if any, had not been found as of 2006. Excavations were carried out at the quarries of Omis Cave on the island of Oreor, Chelechol ra Orrak and Upper Orrak on the island of Orrak, and Metuker ra Bisech on the island of the same name. The first two sites, caves/coves that open on the beach, appear to have been exploited before contact with Europeans, although the dates could not be determined. The other two sites are located uphill, some distance from the beach. Quarrying at Metuker ra Bisech appears to have started only around 1700 CE, after the Yapese acquired iron tools. A large stone (3.5 m diameter, 20 cm thick) that apparently broke while being removed from the quarry at Metuker ra Bisech was abandoned on the spot. According to oral traditions, the central hole was made with a coral reef stone used as a "fire drill", presumably a large bow drill.

It is reported that the stones were transported on land by inserting a log or bamboo through the hole, which was carried on the shoulders of several men. The book His Majesty O'Keefe is the story of his life on Yap. A film of the same name starring Burt Lancaster was made in 1954.

End of manufacture

The trade for rai stones eventually stopped at the beginning of the 20th century due to trade disputes between Spanish and German interests in the area. Quarries were abandoned. When Imperial Japanese forces took over Yap during World War II, they used some of the stones for construction or as anchors.

Although modern currency has replaced the stones as everyday currency, the rai stones are still exchanged in traditional ways between the Yapese. They are a national symbol and are depicted on local license plates.

Economic interpretation

In a 1991 paper, economist Milton Friedman argued that while the Yap system of immobile money might seem bizarre at first glance, it was not so different from the operation of the gold vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which can pay gold from one government to another without the gold ever leaving the vault. Demands by the government of France for such payment from the United States in 1932 contributed to a nationwide bank panic, proving that industrialized countries could fall under the sway of economic rituals as surely as the Yap islanders.

A 2022 paper by Jo Lindsay Walton, a research fellow at the University of Sussex and science fiction author, claims inconsistencies, errors and omissions in many Western economic accounts of stone money, including Friedman's. Walton's paper asserts that when "Yap has appeared in Western political economy, the lessons which authors draw often reflect their position in intellectual and political disputes which are not principally rooted in Yapese history or economics."

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File:Rai stone from Yap currency.jpg|Rai stone at the Bank of Canada Currency Museum in Ottawa

File:Yapese stone money 2007.jpg|Rai stone on Yap Island

File:Yap Stone Coin, British Museum.jpg|Yap stone, British Museum, London

File:Rai Stone at the National Museum of American History, 7 February 2024.jpg|Rai stone on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

File:Presentation of Yapese stone money for FSM inauguration.jpg|Presentation of a rai stone at the inauguration of the Federated States of Micronesia

File:Yap license plate 2000 series.jpg|Rai stone depicted on a Yap State license plate

File:HH1883 pg125 Hafen von Jap.jpg|Rai stone being transported to Yap Island (1880)

</gallery>

See also

  • Bi (jade)
  • Petrosphere
  • List of storms named Rai – a list of tropical cyclones that were named after the Yapese stone money.

References

Bibliography

  • Bryan, Michael F. (2004-02-01). "Island Money". Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, 1 February 2004. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20110927230430/http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/commentary/2004/0201.pdf.
  • Murphy, Geri (2011). "Yap's Amazing Stone Money". Sport Diver, 2011. Retrieved from http://www.sportdiver.com/keywords/yaps/yaps-amazing-stone-money .
  • Poole, Robert Michael (2018). The tiny island with human-sized money. BBC Travel, www.bbc.com, 2018. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180502-the-tiny-island-with-human-sized-money.
  • "Yapese Quarry Sites", PacificWorlds.com.
  • License Plate with rai symbol and slogan from licenseplateinfo.com.
  • "Stone Money", The Road to Riches, bbc.co.uk.