IN MERITAH, THERE IS a proverb that says, “One should not drop their old calabash looking at the basket of another.” In other words, one should not get caught up in what belongs to another or what is coming from elsewhere to the point of abandoning that which belongs to you and that which serves you better. Our ancestors have warned us of this a long time ago.

Today, in seeking the path that leads towards truth, man is exposed to a diversity of doctrines, sects, religions, etc. All of them pretending that they can help us solve our problems, improve our conditions of life, and gain better knowledge of the will of God for our enlightenment.

Since colonization was born, we have been victims of this situation which is associated with government policies. Yet, humans in front of this sad reality still have this tendency of striving to achieve their goals by ignoring the unique path that is common to all, the one we know better, given to us by our ancestors. We ignore the path forged by our ancestors in order to embrace what has been imported from somewhere else. On these foreign paths, we find it hard to adapt because we are urged to only use faith or belief which doesn’t fit the reality of everyday life.

It is only the heart that buys into such ideas, but the brain, it thinks. This is the wisdom of Master Naba Lamoussa Morodenibig, founder of The Earth Center (a cultural organization working for the preservation of original documents and cultural traditions of mankind in all its authenticity). In The Earth Center’s M’TAM School of Kemetic Philosophy & Spirituality, Master Naba tells us how easy it is to conquer the human being through his heart and emotions rather than his brain with which he ponders before he acts.

Master Naba is a Gourmantche from Fada N’Gourma, a town located east of Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou, in the heart of West Africa. He is one of the few priests of traditional Kem (African) initiation to study in the modern educational system to the level that he is recognized as a parapsychologist, cultural activist, writer, publisher and researcher.

Master Naba is seen around the world as the first Kem (Traditional African) intellectual to present the Kemetic sciences and knowledge to the world. He has traveled extensively worldwide, visiting many spiritual communities and sharing with them his knowledge, knowledge gained through harsh initiations and the strong Kemetic traditions handed down from mouth to ear and generation to generation for millennia.

With the blessing of his royalty and his masters and elder brothers of initiation, he decided in 1994 to go around the world and share his knowledge.

His mission was to provide the M’TAM education (humanity’s original school of education), and give the colonial world a chance to return to its source, to our roots. His first target was the United States, this superpower imperialist land in which many colonized Africans live far away from their homeland in situations that we all are too aware of as Slavery and Neo-slavery. After ten years of hard work and toil he managed to settle and open schools of M’TAM education in several cities in the United States.

In 2006, he decided to return home to his native land in Burkina Faso to share his knowledge and open an M’TAM school, the first of its kind in Merita (Africa). The first generation was formed, and from over fifty entries, only four were able to resist and withstand his initiation and reach their graduation.
Master Naba left us in 2008 for the Imentet (World of the Dead). He left assured by the work that he left behind and the senior students in The Earth Centers worldwide that his work would continue to spread throughout the world.

On a day that coincided with this year’s Kemetic new year and The Earth Center’s annual pilgrimage (another tradition started by Master Naba in order to reconnect the world with its ancestral home), the Ouagadougou M’TAM School, with the presence of elder brothers and sisters from the United States, graduated two students who answered the call of their ancestors by sacrificing themselves for months to acquire initiation into this knowledge in order to live according to their own traditional values and renew contact with them.

There were more than a dozen students to start in their generation, but these are the only two students who have completed the initiation. It seems like other people have been looking at the basket of another and forgot that it is their own old calabash which has served all of humanity since the dawn of time.

Under the gaze of their family, friends, and guests, the first generation of Ouagadougou, preceded by Herpw Bikbaye (Merr of the entire worldwide Earth Center community), these two proceeded into graduation: Kompoa Thiombiano who now is known by the Kemetic name of Meriunitah Nemapatou and elder Milogo Missa who is now known as Mahaira Nemapatou. They join a large family of Kem, who all send them congratulations and an offer to assist them with the mission they now share.

Guaranteed by their intellectual and spiritual honesty, the respect for their traditional cultural values and particularly for their application of the Code of Human Behavior (the 77 commandments that govern a Kem’s life), we hope that this graduation motivates others who are infected by the culture and values of their slave masters to return home.

The event took place under a very heavy rain, a blessing from our ancestors, reassuring us of their attention, as they are taking into account the work we do in respect thereof and on behalf of the Maakheru: Naba Lamoussa Morodenibig. May his soul rest in peace on the side of the ancestors and continue to inspire us so that we can accomplish the mission entrusted to us and bring light to all mankind.

The ceremony ended with a general atmosphere in the music of traditional instruments such as the djembe drum, kora, flute and so on, delighting the guests of the graduation, the pilgrims from Maanu and the graduates themselves.

An appeal was launched for the commencement of a new generation, a call which, no doubt will bring many.

Even if we do not know where we are going, let us try at least to know where we have come from...