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Holiday ornaments from my home to yours!
Wooden bird made by the San Bushmen in Namibia, red woven circle baskets handmade in Bhutan.
May this year’s end bring what you have given others through your support of the Tribal Trust Foundation–the fulfillment of dreams, joy, love, and hope! We’re sharing these photos of some of the people you have touched this year through your generosity.
1) San woman 2) Shipibo-Konibo children 3) Sonam, Monpa wisdom keeper 4) Rina, San wisdom keeperLast month, seven women (including photographer, Roberta Marroquín) and I traveled on a TTF donor trip to Namibia and Botswana for a journey of a lifetime! We traveled in support of a San Bushman community struggling to survive and preserve their hunter-gatherer way of life in the Namibian Kalahari Desert. Currently their lives and culture are at high risk due to illegal non-Indigenous settlers encroaching upon their ancestral land for unsustainable development, climate change, and missionaries shaming them for trance dancing–a tradition that is central to their identity and most important means for healing. /Koce Ghau, the elder matriarch and medicine woman, first contacted me over twenty years ago through her extraordinary indigenous ability to communicate in methods unfamiliar and inaccessible to most of us in the Western world, asking for help. I encourage you to read more about this remarkable story!  TTF donor group with guides & pilot in Sossusllei . Photo: Roberta MarroquínOn safari, the TTF group explored the Namib Desert and the Skeleton Coast of Namibia before arriving on a very short dirt airstrip in the Kalahari Desert at Nhoma. (“Nhoma” means “nowhere” in the San language!) A group of smiling Ju/’hoansi San children were there to greet us when our plane landed. We spent the next couple of days visiting their village and going with the women to gather food in the bush. The highlight of our stay was in the evening, watching the elder medicine men teaching the initiates the trance dance while they moved around the fire to the rhythmic clapping and stomping feet of their enthusiastic community. Time slowed down and expanded. Much was experienced, shared, and documented. One trip participant reflected that the San offered “a beautiful example of how a collectivistic culture promotes harmony and benefits all its members.” You can watch a video here. 
San Trance Dance. Photo: Roberta Marroquín
The success of the healing trance dance gathering was confirmed on the last day. Elder medicine men decided this indigenous transfer of knowledge needed to be an annual event. The documentary team also reported seeing children suddenly jumping out of the bush and play acting the healing dance! A culture is being revived!Thanks to generous donations from ALL of the women who signed up for the Africa trip (including those who could not travel due to COVID), the Tribal Trust was able to respond to /Koce Ghau’s urgent request for food, school supplies, and funding for this trance dance gathering. We are also very grateful to the documentary crew (funded through a LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics grant) and Nicole Fernandez of A2A Safaris for organizing our travel. We are in deep gratitude for everyone’s contribution!
/Koce Ghau, San Elder matriarch and medicine woman. Photo: Roberta Marroquín
On behalf of the Tribal Trust Board and Family, thank you again for being a positive force! May we continue to respond to the requests of Indigenous peoples for cultural preservation while amplify the voices of the most marginalized, those who hold the wisdom to heal and sustain our environment!
Best wishes this Holiday Season & New Year,
Barbara Savage
Founder & Executive Director
Tribal Trust Foundation
The Tribal Trust Foundation is located in the unceded homelands of the Chumash People and the Seminole Tribe of Florida. By recognizing these communities, we attempt to honor their legacies, their lives, and descendants. To learn more about the Indigenous People’s land on which your home or work sits, visit: native-land.ca
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