DOP

I wrote about the Kogi and their warning to the world years ago in another post featuring two films. Their latest message comes in the form of the recently published A Book of Balance in which author Lucas Buchholz recounts the perspective of their elders.

The Kogi hold a unique position; on a bloodstained continent they alone have never been conquered, and have succeeded in preserving their four thousand year old understanding of the world. Their way of living outside of the globalized paradigm governed by money, markets and states, allows us to take a different look at the question of what it means to be human, and how to live a good life on a thriving planet.

With this premiss at the heart of all their actions, the Kogi strive to maintain the natural balance instead of following the perpetual urge to reinvent themselves. However, they acknowledge that their way isn’t a universal blueprint, and that our path uses technology. But we must reinstate the innate principles of life back into the center of our thoughts and actions, or we will soon cease to be human beings.

Many thanks to my friends Fabienne Balmer and Jackson Gore for translating and adapting the book into English.

The greatest breakthroughs of the 21st century will not come from technology, but from an expanded concept of what it means to be human.
John Naisbitt

The following images were captured by Simon Chaput who spent several months with the Kogi in 1999.