Talk:Noken

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Merger proposal

I would like to propose a merger between noken and bilum because they refer to the same object, namely traditional string bags from the island of Papua woven by indigenous women. The difference in terminology is only linguistic in nature (noken is basically the term used in Indonesian West Papua, whereas bilum is the term used in Melanesian Pidgin). Scholarly literatures also do not make a distinction between them, see for example Birgit Braeuchler, Modes of belonging in West Papua: local symbolism, national politics and international cultural concepts, page 36:

In Melanesian Pidgin, they are called bilum, in Indonesian West Papua noken, but there are also local terms for the bags.

Therefore, I believe these two pages need to be merged.

Agree that the two things are just different names for the same thing - though for the new article name of the post-merger a coin toss is probably the most painfree solution. Juxlos (talk) 15:33, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Merge - There really is a small difference between both, so it would be better being merged into the type of bag, rather than keep a stub article about one with almost no difference. 🌴Koridas🌴 (Negotiate) 04:10, 11 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I object to this merge in its current form. This merge has just been done, deleting considerably more text from the Bilum page than is on the Noken page, and retaining virtually no mention of PNG use. I would suggest this article needs rewriting to incorporate the content from Bilum, or vice versa. In fact, it would make more sense to have Noken redirect to Bilum, since the population of PNG is larger than that of Western New Guinea. Wantok (toktok) 23:28, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]