Yap

The Yapese are the people of the Yap Main Islands in the western Caroline Islands. They speak Yapese, an Oceanic language that forms its own branch apart from the other Micronesian languages. Settled roughly two thousand years ago by voyagers from Melanesia, Yap developed a stratified society, with at least seven ranked castes and villages whose rank rose or fell through warfare and tribute.

Yapese sailors navigated by stars and swells without a compass, and the island built a dominion over surrounding atolls. Its stone money consisted of giant calcite disks quarried chiefly in Palau and rafted home at great risk, whose worth lay in their size and the story of their transport.

Álvaro de Saavedra sighted Yap in 1528, and Ruy López de Villalobos charted it in 1543. Spain never ruled Yap; in 1837 its villages governed themselves.