Origins Project
Jon Young dancing with !Uta, the main teacher
Horizons of Hope
When we visit, our San Bushman family guides us through the African Velt (bush). They come alive, happily sharing their age-old knowledge of plants, animal tracks, hunting, bird language, and survival practices. From the friction fire they make before us, they feed us a mid-day snack of roasted nuts and berries, and quench our thirst by serving slices of a tasty water-saturated tuber. We learn how their practices have been handed down for thousands of generations through demonstration and mentoring from the elders to the children in a continued lineage of their traditional knowledge. Through a translator, they answer our questions of how they care for themselves, each other, and the land that supports them. Under the waning light of day, they invite us to dance with them around their community fire in celebration of sharing their culture. We experience being fully human together.
Learn more about our 3 phased project initiatives below:
1. Home on the Land
2. Remembering their Ways
3. Teaching the World
“We Bushmen were always afraid of other people and would run away from them… We were always running away from the world. Now we are at the end of the world, where we don’t have anywhere else to run.” - Xhoeta, Bushmen hunter and elder.
“I tell my children it is important for us to keep our culture. We are always telling stories about our culture to our children, just as our fathers have for generations. Every day we sit around the fire and tell these stories.” - Xhoeta, Bushmen hunter and elder.
“We Bushmen can help you the modern people with the healing of culture so that modern people can be happy again like the Bushmen are.” - Xaba, an elder woman.
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Our Stories
Learn how you can help regenerate our culture by helping the San Bushmen in the Kalahari, a people we have a lot to learn from. Click on the links below for interviews with the main movers of Origins Project.
Interview with Nicole Apelian
Interview with Jon Young
What does it mean to
be a Bushman
Your Stories
“
To be met and greeted by the Bushmen was almost overwhelming. I had never before imagined the ritual of simply being greeted - the eyes and hearts of my hosts peering acceptingly into the core of my being - could so quickly overturn all of my self-doubts.
Lonner Holden, Holden Healing Studio
“
What I experienced out on the land with the Bushmen was a culture beyond time, money, and politics. It was a culture whose existence is based purely on relationship with each other, the plants, the animals, the land, and the Bushman’s own ancestors.
Carol Grojean, Ph.D, Social Systems Scientist
If you have a story to share, please email Origins@8Shields.Org
Travel with us to meet the Naro Bushmen
Experience the Warmth of their Greeting You...
Help Create a Legacy of Ancestral
Connections for Future Generations
With your donation to the Origins Project, you become a co-creator in spinning a powerful and durable rope of connection between our ancient past of sophisticated wisdom and our re-awakened future.
