Keeping ancestral knowledge alive
The ancestral knowledge of indigenous people is the key to the necessary paradigm shift and a successful regeneration of our damaged ecosystems – we support indigenous people to preserve this wisdom and bring it to the world.
Indigenous people guard the timeless wisdom of humanity in their cultures. Let’s keep it alive!
Culture is transferred orally through the generations
Most indigenous wisdom is not written down. Many indigenous people are oral cultures that transfer the knowledge from generation to generation and by simply living the knowledge that is often highly local and specific to a certain ecosystem. When the elders die and the young have not yet listened, the knowledge is lost.
Wisdom that has developed over thousands of years
Indigenous cultures have found ways of living in balance with nature for thousands of years. Many say that the knowledge was given to them through a mythical event or special person in the dawn of time. This knowledge can not be recreated so easily and even though it is timeless, it has huge value due to its ancient origins.
A Kogi speaks about preserving ancient wisdom
“The smartphone is a big threat coming to some of our villages. Our children don’t learn traditional knowledge like they did before from our elders. Some of the Mamos are already very old and when they pass away the knowledge is lost.
So we need to preserve it, we need to write books, make films about it and teach it. This will not only serve us now, but serve future generations of indigenous and non-indigenous people.” – Arregoces Coronado Zarabata
Learning to create indigenous knowledge again
In addition to preserving indigenous knowledge we need to learn again how indigenous knowledge is created. What was the state of mind that made the traditional knowledge and regenerative practices possible.
In times where ancient indigenous wisdom gets lost more and more, we need to create opportunities that enable us all beyond cultures to create indigenous wisdom again and form cultures and societies that honor the earth and all life on her.
Running Projects
Creating a documento madre
We currently finance a young Kogi to interview the Mamos high in the mountains and record as well as transcribe the interviews. The Kogi plan to write a curriculum for their two internal schools focussing on their own traditional knowledge.
They have decided to educate a part of their children also in the western ways but want their education to be 50% western 50% traditional. For that purpose, a formalized curriculum is being created through the knowledge of the Mamos.
Kogi youth learn from a Mamo
Some Kogi children live in the city to be educated in a Colombian school. However, they need to learn their traditional knowledge from a Mamo, where they have to travel once a week.
We cover their traveling costs, food and the compensation for the Mamos time so they can keep a strong contact with their ancestral knowledge while being educated in a western way. One of them wants to become a lawyer one day.
Completed Projects
Kogi meet Sami
In 2022 the Sami elders asked the Kogi Mamos for spiritual support. In 2024 the Kogi Mamos were finally able to travel to Sapmi and meet the Sami elders. They went to sacred places where no rituals have been performed for over 100 years because of the oppression from the Swedish state. But now, with the assistance of the Kogi Mamos, the Sami elders could perform it again.
Sacred reindeer antlers were returned to places where they had been stolen and a lot of good conversations about how to deal with many of the challenges like mining and tourism that are the same in the mountains of Colombia or the Arctic circle in Sweden have happened.