Outer Island Correction...and legend

As I stay and learn more and more each day about these islands I'm beginning to get a better understanding of the people here and their traditions. So, I want to make a correction my last post. As a friend here said best, the caste system on Yap is like a complex spiderweb that covers the island, so it's very difficult to understand. I was wrong when I said the outer islanders were below the lowest caste...in fact they don't really have a caste, they are a completely different entity. The relationship to the outer islanders is more like they are the children of the people of Gagil.... we take care of them... and this is why they can eat with us.

There is a legend that goes with the story of how the people of Gagil came to have this relationship with the outer islands. The story goes a little something like this. Long ago there was a girl in one of the high rank families in Gagil. Whenever a turtle was killed, she would be given the breast of the turtle which is the best part of the meat. One day she was away from her home and she smelled that someone was cooking a turtle and this made her very happy because she knew she would soon be given the turtle breast and she was hungry. Well, when she walked to her home she found a basket hanging for her, and inside the basket was the arm of the turtle, not the breast. This made her really sad and upset. She took a coconut shell in her hands and walked out into the ocean weaping. She walked far out and anytime she got to a place where the water was over her head she placed sand in the coconut shell and an island was formed. She did this far out, creating the outer islands as she went. She finally stopped at MogMog where she lived untill she died. And this is how the people of Gagil have this relationship like ownership over the outer islands and see their people as like their children. Even today, when a turtle is killed, the turtle breast must be taken to MogMog, to the women's house, as a symbol to the lady from long ago.

I'm sure I butchered that story, but that is the gist of it anyway, really interesting. Remember I'm learning these things as I'm sharing them with you, so I may not get it exactly right, but it's too interesting not to share.

By the way, thanks to everyone who reads and comments..even if I can't reply to them all. They really make me happy... so Kammagar (Thank You in Yapese)