The Current Project:
Healing Secrets of the Maasai
Ilomon is partnering with the Maasai community to safeguard their rich traditions of natural remedies. The initial stage involves a trip to Tanzania during the summer of 2023, to have discussions with Maasai tribe members regarding their flora and its medicinal significance in their culture. With the support of the Future Warriors Project and Adumu Impact, Ilomon's director, Max Bloom, will be visiting multiple villages in Northern Tanzania with unique plant diversity. The current itinerary includes Esilalei, Kiserian, Oltepesi, Kitenden, and Sanya Juu.
All interviews will be recorded, transcribed, and translated into English with the help of a local Maasai translator. All that information will be collected to produce two separate products: a print publication that will be distributed for free to Maasai villages throughout Tanzania and a web-based sound archive for audiences within and beyond Tanzania.
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'Healing Secrets of the Maasai'
Our book, 'Healing Secrets of the Maasai,' will provide a way for future generations of Maasai to reconnect with their heritage. The Maasai community has a long history of using local plants as medicine, and this knowledge has been passed down through generations. However, with modernization and the younger generation moving away from traditional practices, this knowledge is being lost. 'Healing Secrets of the Maasai' will provide an organized and systematic way of presenting and preserving Maasai medicinal culture.
The book will include transcriptions of oral interviews we have collected along with facing-page English translations. This allows for readers outside of Tanzania to learn from the book at the same time as it preserves Maa, the indigenous language of the Maasai. An important part of their heritage, the Maa language has been at risk recently as younger generations shift toward using languages more widely spoken in east Africa (such as Swahili) and across the world. "Healing Secrets of the Maasai" will preserve Massai remedies with and through the Maasai's own language.
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Audio Archive
A second product of the 2023 trip to Tanzania will be an audio archive of all of the recordings taken of Maasai people describing their uses for medicinal plants. Along with the original recordings in Maa, the archive will offer English translations for non-Maa speakers.
Housed on our website, the archive will provide another set of benefits to the Maasai community. The presence of Maasai medicinal culture online opens up a new platform through which the Maasai can share their culture and allows for a wider audience to learn about their rich cultural heritage. In addition to becoming a resource for non-Maasai people outside of Tanzania, the free archive also allows for Maasai people who may live far away from their traditional lands to reconnect with the knowledge their elders would otherwise pass down to them orally in person.
With many young people spending more time online, it is increasingly important to digitize the oral histories of cultures like the Maasai's. Ilomon's audio archive will be the first online archive for Maasai stories of this sort, and we hope it will usher in a new era of Maasai cultural preservation.
The acacia bush, the Swiss Army Knife of Maasai medicinal plants