The Last Children of the Kalahari is a collection of emotionally charged, journalistic-portraits of the children of the Kalahari Bushmen, looking into the face of an astounding truth. These children will grow up experiencing the oldest culture on the plant and the modern world a single lifetime.
In January 2008, I traveled to photograph the Kalahari Bushmen of Botswana and Namibia, visiting remote villages and settlements to investigate their lifestyle as it is today. While I was overwhelmed by the tumultuous existence and the volatile politics of the Bushmen’s place in society, it was the children, and their future, which captivated me most.
In their eyes I did not see poverty, pain or pity, that a mirror of modern society may be tempted to reflect upon them, rather I saw the sacred beauty of an abundant life lived in harmony as a human beings, interdependent with the planet.
These children were born into traditional methods of hunting and gathering, within egalitarian, small foraging families, living a harmonious and sustainable existence with nature. For 80,000 years their culture thrived in possible the planet’s harshest desert, the expansive Kalahari. These children will watch their ancient culture vanish as communities are forced from traditional homelands into a foreign and detached modern world.
Their extensive knowledge of survival and sustainable use of local resources hold relevant lessons for the modern word, but remain threatened by politics, progress and development. As unimaginable, disruptive and unavoidable changes face both the modern world and the Bushmen civilization; there is much to learn from this ancient culture before it disappears forever.
The Last Children of the Kalahari bridge ancient knowledge to the world today.
Katherine B. Topolniski
2008
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