Most visitors arrive on Yap to dive its award-winning dive sites where giant manta rays, sharks and an array of exotic creatures can be found.
Yap is the most traditional island of its counterparts in the Federated States of Micronesia.
Step into a Yapese village and you can find children practicing a colorful traditional Yapese dance or an old woman weaving her basket.
Little boys in red thuws, or loincloths, run across the stone path that has been used for centuries while a young girl in a grass skirt offers a fragrant flowered nunuw, or lei.
The traditions and customs of Yap are very much alive and the “Mogethin” spirit can be found throughout the island.
One way Yap is offering to share their culture with visitors and the general public is through the Yap Living History Museum.
The new museum is under construction in Colonia, Yap.
The Yap Living History Museum will offer live local demonstrations (weaving, cooking local food, tool making, etc.), traditional Yapese dances, storytelling and traditional canoe sailing.
The purpose of the Yap Living History Museum is to put traditional skills, values and ideals at the forefront and increase the public’s knowledge of the significance of traditional culture as well as the history of Yap islands.
The museum’s first stage of construction will consist of two local structures, a men’s house (faluw) and a meeting house (peebay), as well as a traditional stage or platform called a wunbey.
The buildings and platform are being constructed using primarily traditional building methods that have been used by Yapese for centuries.
The buildings will serve as the cultural backdrop for the museum’s activities. The museum is estimated to be open to the public by the end of this year.
The elders of Yap are a treasure trove of wisdom. They also contain the knowledge of traditional skills and myths of the past. It is important that these skills and stories are not lost on the next generation. Yap Living History Museum is an educational arena for old traditions to come alive once again.
