“Story-telling was an art before," Johnson states, "but it has been displaced by television and radio. When I was a kid, it was a folk entertainment. In the home, in the bai, or for example when we work, during the lunch break, somebody would be telling a story, and then it would end, ‘to be continued….’ It was a real art form. In the evening they’d have the lamp burning and the kids would come around and there were famous storytellers.

" In Palau we have gods all over, and they sometimes appear in human forms and sometimes not. They used to appear in human form way back. There were many. Practically every village in Palau has a god by name, and we have rules and protocols about them.

"We have gods like Medechiibelau from this village. We have another god called Obaklsechal from near the K-B Bridge. In Peleliu we have a god they call Chuodel, 'the ancient.' And we have Uchererak, another god, in Koror. And Tungelbai in Aimeliik. And Palauans still retain the concept of gods in a pluralistic sense. Maybe it is mythological or what, but it exists in our culture. The name for legends is cheldechedúch el chelíd. Cheldechedúch is ‘story,’ chelíd is ‘god.’ ‘The stories from the gods.’ "

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