Mugo Wa Kibiru: The Seer (Kikuyu community)

Mugo wa Kibiru is believed to have been born in Kariara, Murang’a near Thika somewhere between the 18th and the 19th centuries. He was a famous Gikuyu (Kikuyu) prophet. It is not known who his parents were. According to Kikuyu folklore Mugo was found alone in the forest by a hunter called Kibiru as he was inspecting his traps.

Kibiru the hunter was from the Gikuyu Anjiru clan who were traditionally associated with prophecy and powerful medicine. How Mugo came to be in the forest is not known. Even more mysterious is that when Kibiru asked him what he was doing in the forest, Mugo replied that he had been with Ngai (God). Kibiru decided that he would adopt the young Mugo, known as Cege at the time and bring him up as one of his sons not knowing the greatness that he would possess in later years. Thus, he became Cege wa Kibiru. The name later changed to Mugo, which means ‘healer’.

As a young boy, before circumcision, his chores were looking after his father’s goats with the other boys. Out in the field, he would often leave his age mates and go into the forest without fear of wild animals. As it was with other medicine men of that time, he possessed the powers to control wild animals hence why they did not harm him. When they asked where he had been, he would reply that he had been with God.

When Cege grew up, he began prophesying. He prophesied about the coming of the white man. He said that there would come a strange race of people whose skin colour was like that of a small pale frog that lives in water (Kiengere) and that one could see their blood flowing under their skins just like the frog. He also said that these pale strangers would have colourful clothes that were colourful like butterflies (ciihuruta). He warned the Gikuyu that it was foolish for their warriors to ever face these pale strangers with spears because they possessed magical sticks that produced fire (guns shooting bullets). The white men also carried fire in their pockets (matchboxes).

Part of his prophecies also foretold the destruction of Kikuyu tribal customs where the Gikuyu youth would start copying the behaviour of the white men. Cooked food which was previously not sold in the Gikuyu custom would also be sold by the road side. The plains where the Maasai used to graze their cattle would be turned into farmland and a great famine would occur just before the coming of the strange men.

Mugo wa Kibiru also foretold of the building of the Kenya-Uganda railway, which he described as an iron snake having many legs that swallowed the white men and spat them where it stopped. The iron snake, Mugo said, would have a bushy head that bellowed smoke.

One of his most famous prophecies was about a fig tree growing in Thika that would die only after the white men left the country sixty-eight years after colonization. Even the white men acknowledged Mugo’s powers of prophecy and tried fencing off the tree in an attempt to prevent anything from happening to it but shortly, after independence, the tree was struck down by lightning.

Bonus Information
Mugo wa Kibiru made prophecies about the future, and some of them were warnings for his people. Today it is scientists who warn us about the future. If we continue to clear forests and burn fossil fuel, the Earth’s temperature will rise. Warmer temperatures will make life very difficult. Let’s do our part in Kenya by conserving all our forests!