There was once a hunter in Murang’a. His name was Kibiru and every morning, he’d walk into the forest nearby where he lived to inspect his traps. On some days he caught stray goats and wild pigs and other times, he was unlucky and came home empty handed.
On one morning, he set out to the forest as usual and while there was no animal in any of his traps, as he checked the last one, he found a young boy seated against a nearby tree. It was both strange and dangerous for a young boy to be in the big forest alone so Kibiru asked him his name and where he had come from.
“I have come from Ngai.” was all the young boy replied.
Kibiru was taken aback by the answer, but as a believer of prophets and their mystery, he was reluctant to probe further. As he turned to leave, the boy stood and followed him home, and so, was adopted into Kibiru’s family.
The boy was brought up as Cege wa Kibiru. He tended to his adopted father’s goats like other boys his age but when he was free to play, he chose to roam the Murang’a woodlands instead. The other boys often warned him about going into the forest alone for there were several wild animals but Cege was fearless.
Little is known about what would happen in the forest where Cege would often disappear to but one day when he arrived home much later than usual, Kibiru questioned him about his whereabouts.
“I was with Ngai,” Cege said.
Kibiru nodded and let the boy go to bed. Knowing the circumstances in which he found him, he knew not to ask any questions. Even as the boy grew up and was circumcised, he remained a mystery.
As Cege grew older, he began narrating tales that he said would come in the future. He told stories of things that would happen long after he and his father’s generations were dead but begged all his listeners to pass on the stories to their young ones and the ones that followed. He hoped each warning would alert coming generations so that they would be prepared. He took on the name Mugo wa Kibiru to identify as a prophet and healer.
Word in Murang’a went round that in the land where they presently resided, there would be wars with men different from the other communities they knew. The men would wear different clothing from their own; more colourful and they would stand out. But these men wouldn’t come with good but be fall out of a fire snake that crawled beyond the outskirts on Murang’a.
Mugo told of the power of the sacred Mugumo tree where the Gikuyu ancestors resided. He warned that after these men came and were removed from the land, the tree would mysteriously fall and that would signal a new age.
The story passed on, one generation after the other. in the early 1960s the mugumo tree that Mugo had identified near present day Thika was almost under British protection – so powerful was the beleife inteh prophecy that the coloia government did whatit could to maintain the tree and by extentiosn their hold on Kenya. so it was tended to and maintained and thrived. However towards the end of 1963 it was struck by lightning and began to whither and fade, falling over mysteriously by the second week of December. Indeed it was the end of a era. In 2018 another fig tree that had stood for almost eight decades fell, signaling the changing tides that Mugo spoke about.
Kwa kweli, lilichosemwa limetendeka!
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