Contributed by Dave Sapio (email June 25, 2001).  

I have been (slowly) helping collect bottles to take to Tobi for people to use to transport coconut syrup back to Koror to sell, give away, whatever. I asked Paun and Rosania and Jackie if they would want bottles without tops. Yes, sure, they just use useriap for a cork. What’s useriap, I ask. Yap lizard, they tell me. You put lizards in the syrup, I ask, tongue in cheek. Sure, no really, useriap is a soft wood you can use as a cork. When the tree first floated to Tobi, they could hear chirping sounds, and the log was covered with lizards. They knew that it was from Yap, so that was the name they gave to the tree. Yap lizard. That’s what you call the soft wood that you use as a cork. Remarkable story, wondrous bit of folklore and knowledge and whatever anthropologists love. So the next day at the office we end up talking about the same thing again, and they confess that they made up the story. User is Tobian for lizard, and ri yap means from Yap, but useriap is just the name for the wood. So to go with this pun they made up this story to tell me, right there on the spot as far as I know, and could have let me spend the rest of my days wondering how long lizards can float on a log from Yap and wondering how well you could market coconut syrup with a lizard as a cork. Anthropologists of the world, curious foreigners, and peace corps volunteers of the world, Tobi has your number.