ABSTRACT
The people of Yap place their subjects under many restrictions, especially when they visit their island and frighten them by saying that if they violate the taboos they will be punished automatically by such diseases as influenza, asthma, yaws, boils and ringworm. Trade with Palau and the Western world enables the people of Ulithi and 'Woleai' to satisfy their needs in an alternate manner. The Yap lineages are high-caste units owning the lands of their corresponding lineages throughout the empire, and the latter are regarded as low-caste serfs. The land-ownership bonds which link the empire have a peculiar character, and while they are based on the fiction of a kinship relationship they are not kin ties at all. Christianity has formed a wedge between Yap, which is predominantly pagan, and the rest of the empire, which is mostly Roman Catholic. The empire is destined to fall apart, especially if it is not artificially bolstered.
