Mugo wa Kibiru

Mūgo wa Kībirū or (Cege) wa Kībirū was a Kenyan sage from the Agìkūyū Community who lived in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Mūgo wa Kībirū was born between the 18th and the 19th centuries in Kariara, Murang'a, near Thika. Mūgo wa Kībirū later became known as a healer, or mūndū mūgo (“man of medicine”). His name, meaning “Mūgo, the son of Kībirū,” reflected this role. Although he was not the biological son of Kībirū, he was ceremonially adopted into the Anjiru clan of the Kībirū family.

Early life

Mūgo wa Kībirū, originally named Cege, was discovered as a young boy in the forest by a hunter named Kībirū while checking his traps. Cege predicted that a giant fig tree 15 feet in diameter located in Thika, 26 miles north of Nairobi, would wither and die by the day Kenya gained independence. Cege's prophecies had proved so accurate that the fig tree was regarded as sacred by the Kikuyus; even the British administrators/colonialists took the prophecy very seriously that they tended to and reinforced the fig tree with a mound of earth, and then built an iron ring around it to prevent it from falling. These measures were bound to fail. Shortly before Kenya gained independence from the British, the fig tree was struck by lightning and began to wither rapidly. On 12 December 1963 when Kenya officially became an independent state, the tree had decayed and died thereby fulfilling Cege wa Kībirū prophecy over a century earlier

Mūgo wa Kībirū is mentioned in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's (1967). A Grain of Wheat

"Its (Mau Mau movement) origins can, so the people say, be traced to the day the whiteman came to the country, clutching the book of God in both hands, a magic witness that the whiteman was a messenger from the Lord. His tongue was coated with sugar: his humility was touching. For a time, people ignored the voice of the Gìkūyū seer who once said: there shall come a people with clothes like the butterflies"- page 10 - A Grain of Wheat, Heineman, 1967, 1986, 2002 Heinemann (London).

"Waiyaki and other warrior-leaders took arms. The iron snake spoken of by Mūgo wa Kībirū was quickly wriggling towards Nairobi for a thorough exploitation of the hinterland"- page 12 - A Grain of Wheat, 1967, 1986, 2002, Heinemann (London).

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, 2006. Wizard of the Crow

Mugo Wa Kibiru is briefly mentioned by the character Kamĩtĩ.

"He would think of the prophets of old, Confucius, Gautama Buddha, Moses, John the Baptist, Mūgo wa Kībirū, who had all retreated into the wilderness to commune, in total silence, with the law that held the universe together. Were their lives not enhanced by what they had picked up during their pilgrimage?"- page 47 - Wizard of the Crow , Harvill Secker, 2006, (London);

Mugia, D., 1979. Ũrathi wa Cege wa Kibiru

Controversy Some scholars cast doubt on these prophecies, claiming that Ccege wa Kĩbirũ must have heard about Caucasians and trains from Kikuyu traders who might have travelled to the coast for trade purposes And it would certainly have been easy to know about guns, clothing, trains and railways from the Arabs and Caucasians with stories from Kikuyu traders reaching the hinterland from the coastal region where many Arabs and Caucasians carried out their trade. The question would then be; how did Cege know that the Uganda Railway would stretch from one body of water to another many years before the railway was laid out? Cege was long dead before the beginning of the railway construction in 1901. Furthermore, what about Cege's accurate prophecies regarding the falling of the giant fig tree signifying end of colonial rule, the great famine in the late 19th century, and the subsequent cultural erosion of African values and customs? Leakey says that trade contacts existed between Arabs and the Kikuyu for a while, and it is possible that these contacts existed only in certain parts of the Kikuyu nation and not everywhere.

Boyes in his accounts testifies that he was the first white man that some Kikuyus in a particular region, saw, and that he was an object of great curiosity. Boyes states that he enjoyed demonstrating his "white powers" by shooting a hole through a soft barked tree with a rifle {Mutaarani, A Kikuyu Reader for Std. IV, 1953, Consolata Catholic Mission Press (Nyeri); Muriuki Godfrey, A History of Kikuyu, 1500-1900, 1974, University of Oxford University Press (London); Father Cagnolo, "The Agìkūyū", 1933, Consolata Catholic Mission (Nyeri)}.