About the Wisdom Keepers

Ancestral Heart is committed to supporting these wisdom keepers and their missions. Proceeds from our endeavors directly benefit their important work on Earth and beyond. We also honor the villages and teams supporting these elders, recognizing their collective role in healing and teaching.

Our Invitation to You: We invite you to support our collective mission, either through Ancestral Heart or by giving directly to the organizations associated with each elder. Every expression of reciprocity, regardless of size, is meaningful and appreciated.

A Note on Privacy: Due to current regulations on certain sacraments in some countries, some of the elders that we support that travel regularly have chosen not to be mentioned publicly. We respect their wishes for privacy and support them discreetly.

Mindahi Crescencio Bastida Muñoz, Ph.D.

Region: Tultepec, Mexico

Wisdom Tradition: Otomi-Toltec

Organization: The Fountain (Earth), Earth Elders

Mindahi Bastida, Ph.D., is the director of the Original Nations Program of The Fountain and founder of Earth Elders. He serves as the general coordinator of the Otomi-Toltec Regional Council in Mexico. Bastida’s work centers around restoration of the Original Instructions and ancestral wisdom through the Unification Process based on the Five Earth Mandates. A caretaker of the philosophy and traditions of the Otomi-Toltec peoples, he has been an Otomi-Toltec ritual ceremony officer since 1988. He is a consultant with UNESCO for sacred sites and biocultural issues, and also consults for other UN programs.

Bastida  has served as a delegate to various commissions and summits on Indigenous rights and sustainability, including the 1992 Earth Summit and the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD, 2002). He was director of the Original Caretakers Program at the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York City between 2015 and 2020 and has been invited to partake in several advisory councils.

He has written on the relation between the state and Indigenous Peoples, intercultural education, collective intellectual property rights and associated traditional knowledge, biocultural sacred sites, and restoration of the Original Instructions through the Unification Process based on the FiveEarth Mandates. Bastida’s most recent book, Ancestors: Divine Remembrances of Lineage, Relations and Sacred Sites shares his wisdom on these and other topics.

Rutendo Lerato Ngara

Region: South Africa

Wisdom Tradition: Zulu, Kemetic

Organization: Credo Mutwa Foundation

Rutendo Ngara is an African Indigenous Knowledge Systems practitioner and transdisciplinary researcher whose professional interests have spanned from clinical engineering, healthcare technology management, socio-economic development, mathematics, leadership, and fashion design, to the interface between science, culture, cosmology, nature, and paradigms of healing.

Ngara is a co-founder of Ancient Wisdom Africa and the Ancient Wisdom Foundation, and coordinator of the Earthrise Collective, an international coalition weaving together ancient wisdom with activism and building alternative world systems. She serves on a number of boards and advisory committees, including the Credo Mutwa Foundation (chairperson), the Institute of Natural Law, Earth Elders, the ASSEGAIA Alliance, the Indigenous Knowledge Systems for Heritage Animals Council, the South African Wushu Federation, the People’s World Commission on Drought and Flood (commissioner), and Ancestral Heart.

Ngara consults in transdisciplinary research and has worked in website management, research and development in the clinical engineering and healthcare technology management arenas, and has taught mathematics, English, African spirituality, and science. She has served in research and research coordinator roles at the University of Cape Town and UNISA.

She holds a B.S. in electrical engineering and an M.S. in medicine in biomedical engineering, and also holds a number of certificates including English language teaching and a fashion design diploma. She is pursuing a transdisciplinary doctorate.

Kogi Mamo Luis Nuevita Jandingua

Region: Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia

Wisdom Tradition: Kogi Kággaba

Organization: Tyrona Foundation, Le Ciel Foundation

Mamo Luis is a revered Kogi Kággaba mamo, a spiritual leader among the Kogi people. Mama Luis was born in Mukhua kungui Ezuama.

At the age of five he began the formation in darkness in the Ezuama of Sezhangajrha. Each mamo has a unique role, and Mamo Luis is known as the Son of the Sun. Some of his areas of knowledge are the mystical governance of gold, the ancient Kággaba language, and mask work with sacred objects passed down to Kogi Ancestors. When MamoLuis became an adult, he received poporo in the Kabusankhua sacred site.

Mamo Luis became, essentially, an ambassador, traveling worldwide to remind humanity of its responsibility as stewards of the Earth. He works to reactivate the planet’s natural sacred sites, which help maintain balance across all ecosystems. Considered one of the longest-lived mamos who is still alive and active, he has for more than 100 years been part of the institutional creation of the Gonawindúa Tayrona Organization, together with the great enlightened leaders Jacinto Zaragata and Pedro Juan Nuevita, now deceased. The Gonawindúa Tayrona Organization is the representative body of the Kággaba government and the legitimate institution that represents the Kággaba People before the Colombian State and society.

Mamo Luis has appeared in the documentary Aluna, which highlights the Kogi Kággaba people, as well as the 2019 film The Twelve: A Tale of Wisdom and Unity. The latter film follows twelve elders chosen to form a wisdom council and perform a unifying prayer for humanity to live in love and harmony with one another and the natural world.