Although I've told plenty of stories about my experiences living in Palau, I haven't focused enough on telling you all about Palau's history and culture. Thankfully, Palauans have already done the job for me. They've passed down their history and culture through storytelling, resulting in a collection of legends. Among other things, these legends describe how the islands of Palau were formed, how they discovered natural childbirth, and how the dugong came to be. Palauans create wood carvings depicting these legends, called storyboards. More on the storyboards, later...for now, here's are a few of the most famous legends...

Born to Latmikaik, Chuab is one of two daughters of her three children. Another girl was named Tellebuu and a brother, Ucherrerak. While Ucherrerak went to live in heaven, Chuab, was blown to Ngebeanged and went to the house of Ngetelkou with Tellebuu, where they lived and were fed.

Soon Chuab grew very tall, and kept growing. As they kept feeding her, she grew so tall that they could not reach her mouth. The people began to build ladders and climbed to feed her until even the ladders could not reach her height any longer.

As Chuab reached the clouds, no one could care for her. The people finally deciced to buy soil from Uchelianged (God of heaven) and pile them to reach Chuab. Even this measure proved useless, so they gathered firewood and decided to end this by burning her. As the people went about collecting firewood, Chuab asked what they were for. The people replied that the firewood was for cooking more food. They arranged the firewood around her feet and lit it. As the fire burned Chuab and she fell down. Her body parts formed into Belau. The name Belau comes from the aibebelau (indirect replies) to Chuab about the activitity to burn her down.

It was also believed that Chuab died of a sacrifice. As a demi-god, she knew that the people's intentions, yet sacrificed her body for the people.

Long ago, the people of Palau did not know how to deliver a baby, except by slicing open the mother’s stomach with a bamboo knife. Unfortunately, the mother of the child would always perish.

Mengidabrutkoel, a spider in the form of a young man, came from Peleliu to Ngiwal, where he took a young woman named Turang as his bride. When the time came for the midwives of the village to slice open her stomach and deliver her baby, the husband refused to let the women near her. While they stormed outside of the house, the spider supervised the first natural delivery of a child.

An old woman and her daughter lived in Ngerielb, a small hamlet of Koror situated close to the water. One day their problems of poverty were compounded when the mother discovered that her daughter was pregnant. In Palau's olden times, an unmarried girl who became pregnant without having made at least a formal arrangement for marriage was strongly censured by the community, and the girl and her family were stigmatized for life. Thus, to avoid further disgrace, the mother cautioned her daughter to be particularly careful in observing all the traditional taboos on food for pregnant women.

The daughter diligently obeyed her mother's advice, and after several months, she gave birth to a baby girl. The mother was still concerned that her daughter should observe the rituals and avoid food that she was not supposed to eat. One day she cautioned her, "Daughter, you seem to like keam but it is not good for women who have just delivered. I would advise you to abstain from eating it until you are strong."

One day, the mother went to the taro patch while her daughter stayed home to care for the baby. The daughter could not resist eating keam, and cut one of the nuts open, finding that one side of it was a bit larger than the other. As she was trying to get the meat out of the larger side, her mother came. She was so surprised to see her mother that she left the house, went toward the dock, and with her mother and the baby following her, went to the edge of the dock and jumped into the water.

The mother pleaded with her to return and she began crying, but to no avail. The daughter swam on further, finally surfacing as a dugong. When the mother saw what happened, she lost all hope of her daughter ever returning.

The mother wanted to honor her daughter and to have people remember her daughter's fate. She sighed and spoke to her for the last time. "It is clear that you do not want to listen to me, so now your price is a kluk, and this price will be paid as a tribute to a married woman."