vessel and brought thousands of pieces of money from
Palau to Yap. He brought the whole island in debt to himself.
Nowadays they want big stones. Such six feet in diameter are not
rare. This kind of money is the money of the men; that of the
women is of mussel shells strung on strings. The exchange of a
big piece for smaller kinds of money involves considerations of
rank. Two of equal rank, and well disposed, exchange by dignity;
if one is inferior, the good will of the other is requisite. The
glass and porcelain money on Yap must have come from China or
Japan. It has controlled the social development of the islands.
It is also noticeable that other things of high utility, e.g. the
wooden vessels in which yellow powder is prepared, or in which
food is set forth at feasts, are made the objects of exchange,
and, at the making of peace after a fight, or at other
negotiations, affect the relations of tribes.[328] At the present
time bags of dried cocoanut are employed as a medium of exchange,
probably in intergroup trade.[329] What Kubary[330] says about
the use of the money shows that it has no proper circulation. It
accumulates in the hands of the great men, since it is used to
pay fees, fines, gifts, tribute, etc. The armengol women,
marriages, and public festivals start it out again, and on its
way back it performs many social services. It is also reasonable
to suppose that, having got a footing on these islands, it spread
to others by social contagion. This explains the presence of a
general medium of exchange amongst people who are otherwise
barely out of the stone age.[331] The tales about the crimes
which have been connected with the history of great pieces of the
aragonite stone[332] remind us of the stories about the greatest
diamonds yet found.

+151. Money in northwestern North America.+ In South America
nothing served the purposes of money. There was none in Peru.
Metal, if they had any, was used by all for ornament.[333]
Martius, however, says of the Mauhes that they used seeds of
_paullinia sorbilis_ as money. They obtained from the seeds a
remedy for skin disease and diarrhoea.[334] The Nishinam of
California had two kinds of shell money, ullo and hawok. The
former consists of pieces, one or two inches long and one third
of that in width, strung on a fiber. The pieces of shell take a
high poli