Sawei

"Sawei" is a term for aspects of a relationship, variously termed "exchange," "trade," or tribute, between Islanders of Yap and the residents of the Outer Islands of Yap.

The English noun "suzerainty," particularly as used in international law, may be the most precise term for this historic relationship.

As recounted by William Lessa in 1950:

"...It is based on owner-tenant relationships, as well as caste, but it has a softer character than the political relationships discussed above.

Each Ulithi sib is called the "child" of its opposite grouping in Gagil, the latter being called its "parent." The gifts which one exchanges with the other are called sawei, a term that is likewise applied to the baskets used to transport the gifts. The word has a more general meaning, and is used to describe the groupings which exchange gifts, as well as the relationship itself.

Though actually the sawei relationship is one between two caste groups, one of which is the landlord and the other the serf, in practice it is best understood in terms of gift-exchange and reciprocal hospitality between groups maintaining the attitude that they are "parent" and "child." Whether real kinship exists now, or existed in the past, is problematical, but the symbolism, as well as a whole complex of correspondingly appropriate behavior, is nevertheless maintained.

Sawei is not tribute. It is hard to justify even calling it "rent," for if the term were to be used in this manner we would be presented with the ludicrous situation of the landlord giving his serf more "rent" than he receives; for, if anything, the "child," in this case Ulithi, gets the better of the bargain, or, at least, comes out even, as we shall see.

Political considerations enter into this scheme only in an indirect way. A patrilineal lineage in Yap may lose some of its landholdings. Otherwise, how- ever, political control is a wholly separate matter, and a political chief has no authority over the activities of a man acting as spokesman and head of the landholding lineage."

In 1944, a US Navy manual created to provide Civil Affairs officers an understanding of Yap put it this way:

"...All the lesser islands and atolls of the Yap district are politically dependent, and from time immemorial their chiefs have annually sent tribute in mats, turmeric, and spondylus shells to Yap. The chief of Ngulu an atoll 60 miles SSW of Yap, owes allegiance to the paramount chief of the Gorror district, and the Gagil district has suzerainty over all the islands to the east. In general, the political organization of the lesser islands resembles that of Yap.

Everywhere there are village chiefs with limited authority, and in most atolls there is a paramount chief with greater powers. In Elato, Faraulep, and Ifalik, and Lamotrek there is a second chief, who acts as spokesman for the great chief. Satawal is exceptional in having no paramount chief and in following the matrilineal rule of succession which prevails in the neighboring islands of the Truk districts The paramount chief of Lamotrek has at times exercised authority over Elato, Olimaraol, Pikelot, Satawall and West Fayu as well as over his own atoll, but even he has had to visit Gatschapar in Yap at least once every two years to bring tribute to the paramount chief of Gagil."

References and Resources

Alkire, William H. “Lamotrek Atoll and Inter-Island Socioeconomic Ties.” Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 86, no. 2, 1965. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, https://doi.org/10.2307/596488.

Alkire, William H. “Land Tenure in the Woleai.” Land Tenure in Oceania, edited by Henry Lundsgaarde, University of Hawai’i Press, 1974, pp. 39–69, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvp2n5c9.6.

Alkire, William H., and Keiko Fujimura. “Principles of Organization in the Outer Islands of Yap State and Their Implications for Archaeology.” Micronesica, vol. 2, 1990, pp. 75–88, https://micronesica.org/volumes/supplement-2.

Berg, M. L. “Yapese Politics, Yapese Money and the Sawei Tribute Network before World War I.” The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 27, no. 2, Dec. 1992, pp. 150–64, https://doi.org/10.1080/00223349208572704.

Betzig, Laura, and Santus Wichimai. “A Not So Perfect Peace: A History of Conflict on Ifaluk.” Oceania, vol. 61, no. 3, Mar. 1991, pp. 240–56, https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1834-4461.1991.tb01597.x.

Craib, John Ligertwood. “Settlement on Ulithi Atoll, Western Caroline Islands.” Asian Perspectives, vol. XXIV, no. 1, 1981, p. 47.

Descantes, Christophe. “The Martyrdom of Father Juan Cantova on Ulithi Atoll: The Hegemonic Struggle Between Spanish Colonialism and a Micronesian Island Polity.” Missionalia: Southern African Journal of Mission Studies, vol. 32, no. 3, Jan. 2004, pp. 394–418, https://journals.co.za/doi/abs/10.10520/AJA02569507_1051.

Intoh, Michiko. “Historical Significance of the Southwest Islands of Palau.” Islands of Inquiry: Colonisation, Seafaring and the Archaeology of Maritime Landscapes, edited by Geoffrey Clark et al., Australian National University Press, 2008, pp. 325–38, https://doi.org/10.22459/TA29.06.2008.

Lessa, William A. “Ulithi and the Outer Native World.” American Anthropologist, vol. 52, no. 1, 1950, pp. 27–52, https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1950.52.1.02a00040.

Lessa, William Armand. Ulithi: A Micronesian Design for Living. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966, https://archive.org/details/ulithimicronesia0000less_d9h8.

Martin, Lynn. An Approach to Central Carolinian Aesthetics. 1981. University of Hawaii, https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/e180f456-b17f-46b5-b028-dbebcbe084ed/content.

Morgan, Amanda. “Mystery in the Eye of the Beholder: Cross‐Cultural Encounters on 19th‐Century Yap.” The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 31, no. 1, June 1996, pp. 27–41, https://doi.org/10.1080/00223349608572804.

Petersen, Glenn. “Indigenous Island Empires: Yap and Tonga Considered.” Journal of Pacific History, vol. 35, no. 1, June 2000, pp. 5–27, https://doi.org/10.1080/00223340050052275.

---. “Yap and the Yap Empire (Micronesia).” The Encyclopedia of Empire, Wiley, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe048. Younger, Stephen M. “Violence And Warfare In The Pre-Contact Caroline Islands.” The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 118, no. 2, June 2009, pp. 135–64, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20707479.