Papua to Build Noken Museum

KOTA JAYAPURA - The central government has initiated the construction of a museum in Papua to serve as an education and historical center for noken, Papua’s unique traditional woven bag.

The museum will be built with a fund of Rp 5 billion (US$515,000) on a 5,000-meter plot of land. Education and Culture Minister Muhammad Nuh laid the first stone in Waena, Jayapura, on Wednesday.

“The museum is to prevent a generational disconnect. We cannot imagine, without a museum, what happened 30 years or 100 years ago,” Nuh said.

“With this museum, people will still understand in the next 100 or 200 years to come.” The museum will be equipped with various types of noken from all over Papua and information on how to make them. Noken is usually woven from wooden bark or orchid stems but now there are also noken made from textile fiber.

Noken was included in the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding by the UNESCO on Dec. 4, 2012, in Paris. Attending the inclusion ceremony was Titus Pekey, who submitted noken to be in the list. [TheJakartaPost]