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Te Ao Māori News
Urbanisation and deforestation threaten indigenous noken weaving
The string is also woven into traditional clothing. Photo: Supplied.
Urbanisation and environmental destruction threaten the Indigenous noken-weaving practices in South Papua Province, Indonesia, home to what’s been called the world’s largest deforestation project.
Noken/Men: Bags of the Muyu Tribe of South West Papua exhibition at the University of Auckland is part of Veronika Kanem’s PhD submission.
The research focuses on her father’s tribe, the Muyu people and their string bags. She analyses the mobility of the people, their gift-giving story and the environmental destruction that is happening in her homeland.
Noken is a traditional string bag made of various natural fibres of trees and plants, and the Muyu people they call it men and they are made from the genemo tree (Gnetum gnemon).
“Noken is a very embedded in our life as part of our identity because we wear noken from the birth to the death,” Kanem said.
“The exhibition is also a way to give something back to my community.”
Kanem said these bags contain the social and cultural values of the Muyu people.
Men hold machetes and axes for gardening, are given as gifts, used in cultural ceremonies, bridewealth payment and child initiation into adulthood.
They are also woven as gifts to give their husbands to show love and affection. Or gifted to strengthen relationships with extended family. Decorated men are given to significant guests (religious or government leaders) to show respect.
Noken symbolise a woman’s womb or a source of life as it is used to carry babies, piglets,and and garden harvests.
Women weave the bags in between their domestic tasks of cleaning, gardening, and pig farming. Some weave while taking care of the children and while selling their garden produce at the market.
“My message is for the Noken women in West Papua,” she said, “I want them to keep weaving their Nokens, keep weaving their knowledge because by doing the weaving we’re also defending our land, our forests.”
Massive deforestation project threatens the indigenous weaving practice
Last year Te Ao Māori News spoke to Rosa Moiwend of the Marind-Anim tribe in Merauke whose land is being targeted with 1.6 million hectares of indigenous forests to be destroyed and replaced with rice fields and sugar cane plantations.
This is part of Indonesia’s National Strategic Project to help Indonesian self-sufficiency in food and energy. The project is managed by the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Agriculture.
“The Marind tribe are in great danger because of this,” Kanem said.
“If you destroy the forests, you destroy our identity.”
The movement from villages to cities risks loss of tradition across generations
The mobility of the Muyu people from rural villages to urban Merauke threatens the continuation of their traditional men’s weaving practices.
According to Kanem, urbanization is driven by the search for educational and employment opportunities. However, The distance between Maropko and Merauke is 524 km, which takes about 13 hours by car, and even longer during the rainy season.
Once they’ve moved, Muyu women can struggle to access genemo fibres needed to make men’s woven garments. They often have to wait for people to travel the long distance from the villages to sell the fibres at the market.
To sustain the cultural practice of men’s weaving, urban women must spend significant amounts of money to purchase the inner fibres. While many urban women no longer practice the art form, those who can are encouraged to teach and pass on the knowledge to younger generations to ensure the skills are not lost.
Māori may resonate with the impacts of urbanisation in loss of cultural practices and disconnection from land - in the 20th century within 50 years they went from 83% rural to 83% urban.
Noken recognised as UNESCO heritage, still at risk of being lost
On December 4th, 2012, in Paris, the Noken was recognized as an Intangible Cultural Heritage by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
UNESCO, established in 1945, adopted the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003.
The aim of the text was to preserve cultural diversity and protect and promote elements essential to the cultural identity of communities.
Intangible cultural heritage includes not only monuments and collections of objects, but also the knowledge and skills required to produce traditional crafts, such as the Noken.
It also encompasses performing arts, festivals, social practices, rituals, and knowledge related to nature and the universe.
Despite this the Papuan Noken is still a threatened cultural practice due to massive deforestation happening in West Papua.
The exhibition is running until July 3 at the University of Auckland’s General Library.
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