Ethnobotanical aspect of Noken: Case study in the High Mountain Indigenous community of Papua Island, Indonesia

Abstract

<span style="font-size:9.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt" lang="EN-US">This study purposed to identify the ethnobotalical aspect of Noken as one of traditional products that has been used for fit out a wide range of needs from high mountain indigenous community. Implicitly, Noken is defined as a traditional bag which produced from forest product materials particularly inner-bark of selective trees that are composed by weaving in traditional ways. In everyday lives, the people used it for meet many purposes such as carrying gardens products and food from their garden field even up to bringing their babies. Moreover, in the cultural ceremony, it always portrayed as a unity symbols and epitome togetherness in their social community. People was being informant deliberately chosen as much as 10-15 % of the total population sample for each experimental location. Data was gathered through observation, interviews and focused group discussion (FGD) with people which is strongly influenced in the communities and be Noken-makers. Data gathered included indigenous knowledge of plants used and other indigenous practices and perceptions pertaining to manage and preserve Noken as a highly cultural symbol. There are 8 species of plant that used for making Noken belong to three families. The process is still fairly simple and length of processing time depending on the size desired.

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