Mugo wa Kibiru

Biography

Mugo wa Kibiru is the most famous prophet (murathi) in Kikuyu history, revered for his remarkably accurate prophecies about the arrival of Europeans and the profound changes they would bring to Kikuyu society. Living in the 19th century, before any European had reached central Kenya, Mugo wa Kibiru prophesied with extraordinary specificity about the coming of white-skinned strangers. He described people who would arrive wearing clothes resembling butterflies, carrying sticks that would spit fire (guns), and bringing with them a great iron snake that would cross the land from the sea to the lake (the Uganda Railway). He warned that these strangers would take Kikuyu land and that the Kikuyu would initially lose their freedom. However, he also prophesied that the Kikuyu would eventually regain their land and govern themselves — a prophecy fulfilled with Kenyan independence in 1963 and the presidency of Jomo Kenyatta, a Kikuyu. Mugo wa Kibiru's prophecies were transmitted through oral tradition and later documented by Kenyatta in "Facing Mount Kenya" (1938). His predictions are among the most detailed and verifiable indigenous prophecies in African history.