Mugo wa kibirū

THE PROPHET

The greatest and most famous Gikuyu prophet and seer was Cege wa Kibiru who lived at or around Kariara near Thika. Because like all great Gikuyu seers he was to become a renowned healer or Man of Medicine, Mundu-Mugo, he later came to be known as Mugo wa Kibiru that is Mugo, (Doctor) the son of Kibiru. He was however not the biological son of Kibiru but was adopted and born ceremonially into the Anjiru clan of the Kibiru’s.

Among the “ten” Gikuyu clans, the Anjiru clan have traditionally been associated with prophesy and strong medicine. They were and still are the great healers of the tribe as evident from modern Anjiru like the late Nobel Peace laureate Professor Wangari wa Maathai. It is said that “a Munjiru has something and a bit more”, “Munjiru ari undu na kaundu kangi”, meaning that you can never fathom the depths of the soul of a Munjiru. In his role as a Diviner Priest, he carries a guard with a hooked neck, rugoci, so that unlike an ordinary Medicine Man who uses a straight narrow guard, he will always leave some divination beads and cowrie shells caught inside the dark unknown.

The Munjiru has a strong connection to all of nature and with his flute he can keep animals away or summon them to an assembly or to infest an entire village. In this way they were the guardians of the drinking places at the rivers so that people and their livestock could use the drinking places without fear of attack from wild animals. They would also place protective charms and paraphernalia at village entrances, bee hives and cultivated areas – of cause for a fee. No war party could set out without the protection of a Munjiru Man of Medicine or in Gikuyu, Munjiru Mundu Mugo aka Munjiru Mundu wa Mithaiga. Triple M. Strong medicine indeed!

📷A Munjiru Man of Medicine with his flute summoning the animals.

Cege as a very young boy was found in the forest by the hunter Kibiru as he was inspecting his traps. Seeing the boy all alone so deep in the forest, Kibiru approached him and asked;

“Young man, who are you and who is with you?”

The boy replied, “My name is Cege and I am with God, Ngai, Mwene Nyaga”

Kibiru: “And where do you come from?”

Cege replied, “I have come from God, Ngai, Mwene Nyaga”

Kibiru: “Will you come with me?”

Cege: “Yes”

Kibiru took the boy home and gave him to his eldest wife. He then performed the necessary purifications and rites of adoption and the boy became Cege wa Kibiru.

The great transformation of the Gikuyu from hunters and pastoralists into mainly agriculturalists must have happened after working iron became widespread in the Cuma Generation around the late 17th Century. The great Gikuyu historian and academician, Muriuki mentions a Cege regiment of the Manduti generation and places it just before the Cuma. This would plant the Cege’s firmly in the hunter/pastoralist period before Cuma. Could the mention of a Cege in the Gikuyu chronicles mark the period when the famous MMM, Cege lived? This would place these events in the early 1600s.

As a young boy his work before circumcision entailed looking after his father’s goats with other boys all day. Out in the field, he would often leave the other boys and go into the forest without fear of the wild animals. When they asked him where he had been he would reply that he had been with God, Ngai. When he grew up he began prophesying. It is not possible to compile a comprehensive list of all his sayings but the following is what has come down to us.

THE PROPHESIES

There will come a people from the East who will look like butterflies. Their skins will be colourless like that of the tree frog, Kiengere and you will be able to see the blood flowing under their skins just like in the Ciengere (plural). These people will also look like lepers.

The Ciengere will cause a painful upheaval of the tribal ways and things will never be the same again. These pains will be the birth pangs of good and of bad.

An Iron snake will be built by the Ciengere from the Sea of Rukanga, iria ria cumbi, and it will enter the Sea of the Sparrow, iria ria ihii. It will not be possible to cut the snake with a machete or spear.

A living snake with a bushy head, kihinga, bellowing smoke will ride on top of the sleeping snake. It will swallow the Ciengere and spit them out.

Shortly after the snake’s coming, there will be a big famine and a pestilence that will nearly finish the people.

The Ciengere will carry sticks that spit fire and it will be foolish for our warriors to confront them with their spears.

The Ciengere will fill the whole land.

The Ciengere’s skin will look like they have leprosy and their eyes will have stripes like the skin of a mouse.

Children will be born who will not have ears but only holes. They will abandon the ways of the tribe and will show no respect to their elders and parents.

Children will be born who will wear bells, mbugi, in their ears and will not listen or hearken to tribal teaching, kirira.

Children will be born who will have no fear of committing abominable acts, migiro.

Adultery and promiscuity, waganu, will fill the whole land.

Theft and petty crime will fill the whole land.

Cooked food will be sold on roadsides and markets all over the country.

The Gikuyu people will not heed the leadership and warnings of the Anjiru Clan and instead will follow the Aicakamuyu.

Lake Naivasha will be planted with sugarcane and bananas by the Gikuyu.

The plains where the Maasai, Ukabi, roam with their cattle will be farmed and millet planted there.

The great forest of Mbage will one day join with the great one of Kiriti and will become one.

When the sleeping snake will shift and sleep alongside the Ngong Hills, only then will the living iron snake swallow the Ciengere and take them to the Sea of Rukanga.

Until the great Thingira wa Iregi (Ruling Council hut) shall be built in Githunguri kia Wairera and inaugurated with the necessary ceremonies and purification rites, the country will never be free of the ills brought by the Ciengere neither benefit from the good brought by them.

Until the great fig tree, Mugumo at Thika shall fall, the country, bururi, shall never be free.

By  Wambūgū wa wairimū 

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