What is the message from the root peoples who faced the pandemic

“When you don't know where you're going, look where you come from,” says an African adage. Frederika Van Ingen, who has written two books about root peoples, revisited the Covid-19 dilemma in light of their wisdom.

The root peoples know they belong to a "more than human" system that includes all species, components of their habitats, the cosmos, and their interactions. Like our bodies and brains, a system governed by “intelligence of living things” laws that animate the world.

. In 2015, Maasai guru Kenny warned me, “I don’t know what exactly is going to happen,” but we are headed for a tremendous “bang” soon. Mongolian shamans warned Corine Sombrun: "The Earth is angry because we don't respect it." We ignored our instincts and focused on our money, which revolted by sending calamities.

Almir, the chief of the Surui in the Brazilian Amazon, recalled that they would know how to live from the jungle in the coming disaster that would upset our modern civilization, but we had forgotten. In 1985, the Colombian Kagabas told geographer Éric Julien their tradition: “Seruanka [the “Spiritual Father”] stated that at the end of the world, the Little Brother (us) will realise, but it may be too late.

Seruanka remarked, "You can teach him, but Little Brother won't understand, accept, or believe anything. He will only comprehend upon seeing... Our modern human system is experiencing a coronavirus crisis, which disturbs daily life, time, vulnerability, and uncertainty. He felt himself freed and owner of a human system, but a little portion of the more-than-human system ruthlessly reminds him that he belongs to him.

In my recent work, I tried to reintegrate our modern and scientific health perspective with the root peoples' vision, which we have forgotten and rejected owing to ignorance. The root societies' humans regard themselves as cells of a huge living body. Thus, their health depends on each other and vice versa.

The “great body world” is in harmony, like homeostasis in medicine, which maintains our internal environment through breathing, sweating, secretions, etc. The interchange, or interaction, that balances systems and their levels (cells, organs, bodies, groups, surroundings) is necessary for its preservation.

In this “great body” like ours, each element has a place, role, and function: humans must intentionally maintain this harmony by sustaining that of “societies/organs”, “humans/cells”, etc.

The root peoples all say we've forgotten this vital responsibility. Humans are meant to guard the world, not consume it. The “large, more-than-human body” always sends signals to allow rebalancing, much as our immune system sends white blood cells to kill intruders and restore physical integrity. Although these indications are becoming more evident (global warming,

Megafires, biodiversity loss, etc. Coronavirus harms our bodies, social bodies, and human system. Because this health catastrophe is linked to human system imbalances on the "large body". Like earlier zoonoses epidemics, it begins with ecological degradation, according to American Predict programme experts.

have found almost nine hundred novel viruses associated to this damage, which promotes intimate contact and human transmission. These transmissions are linked to its pressure on the superhuman system. In reaction, it seeks rebalancing, possibly through turmoil, according to these wisdoms.

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