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Happy Yap Day!
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Posted on Mar 07 2022
The traditional house in Weloy. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)
COLONIA, Yap—March 1 was Yap Day, a legal holiday held annually as a celebration of traditional Yapese culture.
Famous within the Federated States of Micronesia for its unique quality of both emphasizing the best of modern society, including democracy and democratic principles, and the best of traditional society, including respect for others and the implementation of a fourth branch of government (traditional leadership), Yap Day allows the people of the State of Yap to strengthen and promote their individual and communal identities as Micronesians.
Federated States of Micronesia President David W. Panuelo is given the shell money and rope by the Chief of Weloy, James Manguon. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)
Prior to Yap Day proper, FSM President David W. Panuelo visited the municipality of Weloy where he was invited to attend the opening of a new traditional house. The Chief of Weloy, James Manguon, and the people of Weloy, gifted the president a stone money as well as a shell money. The community placed the stone money, on behalf of the president, outside of the traditional house, and the president signed the shell money. Both the stone and shell monies will be located in Yap, and will serve as a remembrance of the president of the FSM—not Panuelo himself and exclusively, but all FSM presidents, past, present, and future.
First Lady Patricia Edwin and FSM President David Panuelo pose with the stone money. CONTRIBUTED PHOT(CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)
While some Western financiers are quick to ascribe Yapese stone money as the first cryptocurrency, the FSM national government rejects this claim on the premise that Yapese stone money is not merely a means of advancing one’s real and/or perceived wealth but is rather a demonstration of Yap’s unique Micronesian culture.
In addition to the placing and signing of the stone and shell monies, Panuelo joined with first lady Patricia Edwin, Australian Ambassador to the FSM Jo Cowley, and Benjamin Dille, deputy chief of mission of the United States to the FSM, in planting coconut trees outside the traditional house in Weloy.
In his remarks, Panuelo solicited the support of Yap state to advocate to the FSM Congress that it would be culturally beneficial to the whole of the FSM for an exact replica of the traditional house to be built somewhere in the Palikir Capitol Complex. (PR)
