Subtitle: Betel Nut’s Changing Role on Yap

Deck: Betel nut, central to Yapese rituals and daily life, is now Yap’s top agricultural export. This poses health, social, and environmental challenges to island culture

The World & I, Culture: Crossroads, October 2002, volume 17:10, pp. 200-209

Two bare feet dangle from a peeled-branch framework roofed with old thatch and new tin. Stan Garachbar eases himself to the dirt floor, dusts off his hands, and says, “Pardon the mess. We’re renovating.” Our guide, Dennis Ga’ag, beams at Garachbar and the only employee, who’s busy chopping coral. “This is the best factory on the whole island. These guys are like heroes,” Ga’ag says.

Garachbar is known throughout Yap for making lime powder, an essential element of the betel nut “chew” vital to traditional rituals and daily life in this western Micronesian archipelago. He and his partner gather live coral at low tide, break it by hand into smaller pieces, cook it with water over a mangrove root fire, then screen the result to produce a fine white powder. “The secret is in how long you cook it. I do mine for 22 hours,” Garachbar says.

“Stan’s lime is mild. It doesn’t burn your mouth,” Ga’ag says, reaching into his waay, a half moon-shaped basket filled with betel nut fixings. He splits a juicy round green betel nut (fruit of Areca catechu L. palm), sprinkles it with slaked lime, wraps it in a pepper vine leaf (Piper betle L.), then pops it in his mouth.

This traditional mouthful combines two pleasures familiar to people the world over—the relaxing rhythm of rumination, similar to chewing gum, and mild stimulation, something habitual coffee and tea drinkers enjoy.  Recently, however, islanders have been looking for more than the little lift that has satisfied centuries of Yapese masticators. Many now add imported tobacco to their chews. Some dip cigarettes in vodka for extra oomph.

People here have grown and shared betel nut for so long that the wiry palm and its smooth fruit are entwined in Yapese daily life and culture. But acquiring tobacco and vodka for chews requires cash. And not all Micronesian islands produce betel nut year round, as Yap does. So Yapese individuals and businesses have begun selling betel nut. In fact, it’s become Yap’s top agricultural export. This poses health, social, and environmental challenges to island culture.

Wisdom in a Basket

The betel nut palm provides relaxation, clothing, and shelter in Yapese culture. Settled almost 4,000 years ago, Yap is the most traditional of the island states that make up the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM; the others are Chuuk, Pohnpei, and Kosrae). The FSM’s 607 islands total only 271 square miles of land and are scattered across one million square miles above the equator in the Pacific Ocean. 

Yapese people chew betel nut as a way to socialize with each other. Chewing helps them think before speaking at meetings. They offer betel nut as a sign of goodwill to guests and as a source of comfort to people in the hospital or at funerals. The most popular saying about betel nut, Kabaye lawan u waay, means the wisdom is in the basket. People agree that its core message is to slow down, but many add their own spin.

After hearing a radio announcer report that studies show the repetitive motion of chewing gum aids learning, Lorinda Guwaathag started laughing. “In Yap, our ancestors found that out ages ago.  Chewing betel nut makes you open-minded. It helps you remember better and think clearly,” this member of the U.S. military told me.

According to Dr. David Rutstein, a physician on Yap for nine years and president of the FSM Football Association, betel nut transcends Yap’s rigid caste system. “The caste system prevents people from eating together, and, in some cases, touching each other’s possessions. But people can chew betel nut together and even reach in each other’s baskets to do so. Hence the saying about wisdom in the basket.”

The saying became popular when Western education prompted students to rush from one class to the next. “Slow down. Chew a betel nut and take time to socialize. In other words, don’t forget your own culture, for wisdom is found therein,” explains Dolores Yilibuw, now a library specialist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Island pace has quickened since 1989, when divers began arriving to view Yap’s magnificent manta rays. The main four-island cluster of Yap Proper now has three fire trucks, excellent hotels, paved roads, DVD rentals, and 24-hour Internet access. But chewing betel nut roots Yapese people in a way of life that allows time to smell the flowers and share hospitality. 

Dennis Ga’ag carried a waay (basket) to signal friendship while leading my husband and me on ancient stone paths between villages outside his home district. Along the way, people offered drinking coconuts, fragrant flower leis, and shelter from a sudden squall. 

Ga’ag said people weave betel nut leaves into leis and skirts for local dances. They twist fibers from the bark into rope. Mothers keep babies cool in Yap’s sweaty climate by putting them inside curved inner sections of betel nut bark. In the village of Maa, where twenty women, teens, and children gathered one evening to demonstrate traditional dances, a boy named Brian pointed out betel nut flooring in the men’s meeting house.

After the dances, a poised, polite, and topless teen named Roxanne asked, “Would you like a chew?” My husband and I each tried a betel nut wrapped in pepper leaf, without lime or tobacco. It tasted…green, and juicy. Soon I had an uncontrollable urge to spit. The chew gave me a mild flutter near my breastbone. “Doesn’t do much for me,” I said. “Gives me a little buzz. I like it,” Steve replied.

Money Growing on Trees

Yapese people still grow the buzz-producing nut the way their ancestors did, enjoying it for personal chewing and community ritual, and, occasionally, for barter. Exporting it for cash is a new development.

According to the FSM’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, Yap has the most diverse mangroves and agroforests in the island nation.  Rather than plant large fields devoted to one crop, subsistence farmers (sometimes called smallholders) have traditionally practiced an ingenious intercropping system of tree gardens and taro patches. 

Along paths and on household plots, people mix trees of different heights—tall breadfruits and coconuts, medium-height betel nut palms, and fast-growing bananas. They grow root crops in raised gardens beds. Ditches drain into low-lying taro patches, often bordered by mixed hedges of hibiscus, ti, and other useful shrubs. This sculpted landscape absorbs heavy rain, preventing runoff and soil erosion that could damage marine resources within the reef.

Though families have focused on growing enough betel nut to support their habit and share with others, even ancient Yapese people sometimes bartered betel nut. For almost 2,000 years, Yapese mariners sailed 250 miles to what is now the Republic of Palau to quarry crystalline calcite, a sparkling limestone as hard as marble. They bartered betel nut and built stone paths in exchange for access to quarries. Crews spent a year or more using clamshell adzes to carve heavy disks. They drilled holes through which to slip logs and carry the newly-minted stone money to their rafts and outriggers.  

The desire for cash money began as imported goods filtered in during the 20th century, which included Japanese occupation (1919-1944), the legalization of alcoholic beverages sales (1957), and U.S. administration (1945-1978). Money poured in after 1986, when the Compact of Free Association between the U.S. and FSM went into force. The U.S. paid 1.3 billion dollars to gain exclusive military access to the FSM for 15 years and recently negotiated a new agreement. The Compact money helped stock stores, but it created far more government jobs than infrastructure improvements or new businesses.  

Consider these economic realities as applied to a betel nut chew. (The FSM currency is the U.S. dollar.) The average chewer goes through a quart-size ZiplocÔ bag of betel nut in one-half to two days, depending on whether he or she shares. During normal conditions, a quart costs $1.75 to $2.50, but in spring 2002, when drought followed Typhoon Mitag, the price shot up to $34.00.   Those who add sections of cigarette to their chew need one or two packs a week, at $3.50 a pack.

As the FSM government web site states: “The external transactions of the FSM are characterized foremost by a heavy and increasing reliance on imports. …The total national value of exports (including tourism) is less than 10% of the value of imports.” So how do people earn cash for imported tobacco and other purchases? The government is FSM’s dominant employer. The minimum hourly wage is 80 cents for Yap State government employees and $1.68 for FSM government employees. In 2000, Yap’s one garment factory accounted for 77 percent of the value of Yap’s exported commodities. But the garment factory is foreign-owned and uses only foreign workers. 

Agricultural produce is the next most valuable commodity category. People used to earn money by selling copra (dried coconut meat), but world prices fell so low that the Yap Branch Statistics Office quit listing copra exports after 1994. In the last decade, betel nut has became Yap’s top agricultural export, rising in value from $93,961 in 1992 to $789,787 in 2000, when it accounted for 95 percent of agricultural export profit.  

In 1999, researcher Sylvia M. H. Stone interviewed government officials, betel nut exporters, and 61 smallholders for a groundbreaking study on betel nut’s economic value. She learned that certain Yapese people recognized a market niche when they moved to nearby Guam, a U.S. Trust Territory, and Saipan, in the Commonwealth of The Northern Marianas. The hard “red” betel nut preferred in Guam and Saipan fruits there only six months a year. Yap’s softer “pale” betel nut bears all year, given enough water. A market was born.

Smallholders on Yap began selling betel nut to middlemen and directly to exporters. Stone’s survey of 61 smallholders revealed that their average income from selling betel nut to local stores and exporters was $188.07 every two weeks, which was over 160 percent of other income earnings.  Betel nut was the only cash income source for 36 percent of those surveyed. Ninety-three percent rated betel nut income as even more important to them at the time of the survey than when they’d first started selling it. 

Stone also observed that betel nut’s economic importance to Yap is scarcely noted in reports published by the FSM government or international development agencies. She suggests several reasons for such “institutional oversight.” Betel nut is grown by subsistence farming methods, not commercial row-crop agriculture. Betel nut is not widely chewed in Pohnpei, the seat of FSM government. Perhaps most importantly, chewing betel nut is associated with public health concerns.

Out of Balance

In the last decade more Yapese began adding tobacco and even vodka to “new improved chews.”  Some now treat betel nut as a cash source rather than a community symbol. These trends pose health, social, and environmental challenges to island culture.

Habitually chewing betel nut with pepper vine leaf stains teeth red, and, eventually, black. Surprisingly, chewing betel nut prevents cavities, as Dr. Douglas Hanson’s studies of prehistoric Micronesian skeletons document.  “Although we have demonstrated this relationship in the prehistoric Chamorro of the Mariana Islands, a substantial body of literature on contemporary populations indicates a low prevalence of caries in populations that chew betel nut,” says Hanson, now chief technology officer at Boston’s Forsyth Institute, known for biomedical research and education on oral health. He says chewing betel nut may protect against caries because the fibrous quid acts as a toothbrush and because the increased saliva flow contains proteins that inhibit bacterial activity. 

However, Hanson and other doctors also told me that chewing betel nut with lime increases dental plaque, which can lead to periodontal disease and tooth loss. “Their gums recede. Stained but otherwise completely intact teeth simply fall out,” Dr. David Rutstein said.

Dozens of studies link betel nut overuse with oral cancer. “One of the most reliable studies stated that Yap has an incidence of oral cancer of at least eight times higher than the rest of the world,” says Dr. Christina Biester, who sees horrific examples at Yap Hospital. Caustic lime injures tender mouth tissues. Tobacco is addictive and a known carcinogen. Recent studies at King’s College in London and the Harvard School of Public Health show that even when chewed alone, betel nut is an independent risk factor for oral cancer.

Biester says that most Yapese women of childbearing age are anemic, because betel nut numbs the tongue and taste buds, thus suppressing appetite. Cyril Yinnifel, a substance abuse and mental health counselor, gave up betel nut. “Betel nut and tobacco are expensive. It was hard to stop, but now I’m able to taste the food better and I don’t have stained clothes,” he says.

Betel nut’s new role as cash crop presents social challenges—especially when typhoons or drought reduce supply and drive up prices. Growers must choose between sharing betel nut for free or earning cash. Elderly people have complained to the government about high prices.  

The government has been forced to deal with betel nut theft. In fact, for cases of theft, the 2000 Yap State Code designates a specific fine only for stealing betel nut  (Title 11, Chapter 11). The betel nut thief must pay $500, of which $50 is for the village where the crime was committed, $250 for the owner, and $200 for the informant who provided the most reliable information. 

Bob Whitmore, a missionary in Yap, heard more reports of betel nut theft when supplies dropped in spring 2002. “It’s bad if a person steals from someone in his own village, but it shames the whole village when a person steals betel nuts from another village,” he said.

In 1999, as she began realizing betel nut’s economic potential, Sylvia Stone raised the question of whether Yapese smallholders would replace food crops with betel nut.   

“Since copra prices dropped, every place is scraping for whatever it can to earn a little cash,” acknowledges Father Francis X. Hezel, director of Micronesian Seminar, a research institute in Pohnpei.  In the last twenty years, Pohnpei has lost nearly two-thirds of its native upland forest to sakau (Piper Methysticum) plantings. Pohnpeians pound the root to concoct an intoxicating drink. Also known as kava kava, the plant extract has become an alternative health remedy for anxiety in the United States and Europe.

“At first, betel nut exports looked like a trajectory, but there seems to be a natural cap,” Stone now says, explaining that Yap’s 11,200 people realize their 100,000-square-mile state has only 45.9 square miles of land. There’s no immediate cash incentive to replace food crops with betel nut, because the palms take four to seven years to bear.

“Visitors sometimes look at the stone paths, tree gardens, and taro patches in our villages and ask, ‘Is this a national park?’  I tell them, ‘No.  It’s our supermarket, pharmacy, and hardware store,” Dr. Margie Cushing Falanruw told me. This busy director of Yap Natural Science Institute took time out from a conference on sustainable tourism to meet with me on Yap.

She believes the cultural values symbolized by betel nut—slow down, think before speaking, share with neighbors—can help Yap glean the best of the Western world, such as better health care and telecommunications, without abandoning its traditions. For example, while Guam and Palau have rushed into building huge hotels and golf courses, Yap has chosen to attract travelers interested in cultural tours, ethnic arts, home stays, and diving.  

Yapese people respond to threats on their natural resources. Fruit bat stew is popular in Micronesia and parts of Asia. Fruit bat populations dropped when Yapese hunted them with guns. But when Falanruw and her staff educated people about the fruit bat’s vital role in pollinating and spreading seeds, people decided to protect the bats.

Likewise, Falanruw described betel nut exports as an excellent source of cash for worthwhile goods—if growers use traditional agroforest methods. Betel nut’s  “small ecological footprint” fits well in a concept she calls “the Pacific Alternative.”

Her eyes lit up and she spoke even faster: “An island is the best place to understand how nature works and how people can live satisfying lives without destroying the ecosystem. Instead of being just a Compact aid recipient, Yap could model a new paradigm of human-scale, ecologically sustainable development. The world needs to head in that direction.”