Palauan Money

As I was researching and look for some materials that I could use as a source for my Term Paper for Micronesian Church History, I learned a lot that I did not even know. When people talk about Palauan Money, they do not really go all the way to detail. They do not really dig deep to find out where these money came from. I was researching and found out where these Palauan Money possibly came from. In early years before 1600's (i do not really know exact century), the people from Java or Javanese people were making trades with Palauans. They were really good partners on trading and I am speculating that these beads could be the ones that the Javanese people use to trade with Palauans and get some trading sources in Palau. These beads are existing in Indonesia and Nepal. I heard some Palauans saying that the beads that comes from Indonesia are not real because they are less weight than the ones in Palau. That may be true about the weight, but the ones in Indonesia have different values than the ones in Nepal. Also, the beads in Nepal have different weight than the ones in Indonesia. At the same time, there are beads in Bali that are almost the same as the ones that i have mentioned on top. The only prove that i can give is that there are no materials in Palau that makes these beads and the only place that causes these beads to come to Palau is the trade between Javanese and Palauans. There is one blog that I follow and she has a business of selling these beads with many different sizes and different colors.

I read some article that long time ago in Palau, when they measure the value of the bead or "Bachel", they hang it on the branch of the tree to see which one is weighing more and than they will identify which one is valuable if they have same style and colors. Do I value these money in Palau right now? Maybe or maybe not. Do i believe that they are originally Palauan Money? No. So what shall i do now? Accept them just to keep the cultures and tradition in Palau moving. The pictures on top are from four different places. The firs one on Top Left is not from Palau but there are some beads that shaped like it in Palau but different color and considered as real Palauan Money. The one on Top Right is not from Palau but the size is just like of some money in Palau. The designs are different from the ones in Palau because the ones in Palau are either plain or have a little designs on them. I believe that the reason why is because there were not many materials or tools that they could used long ago to come up with the designs that you see over here right now.