Kikuyu.comers tell me what you think about the following Meru Peoples Oral Myth viz a viz Kikuyu Origin Myth:

Oral Myth: the Red People
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The predominant oral tradition concerning the Meru's early history is a fantastic fable that seems to combine elements of both truth and fiction.
In brief, it recounts that the Meru were once enslaved by the "Red People". They eventually escaped, and in their exodus came across a large body of water called Bwaa or Bwa, which they crossed by magical means. The details of the tradition are replete with parallels to the Old Testament, and also contain references to events described in the New Testament. This has led many to speculate that the Meru are perhaps the descendants of one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, or that they were once Jewish, or had been in profound cultural contact with a people that certainly were (such as the Falashim of Ethiopia).
I've based the following version of the tradition on that recounted in Daniel Nyaga's book, Customs and Traditions of the Meru (1997: East African Educational Publishers, PO Box 45314 Nairobi). Although there are many variants, the basic outline is pretty much the same for all.

The Red People and the Exodus
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According to tradition, the Meru once lived in a state of slavery far away from their present homeland, under a people called antu ba nguu ntuune (or nhuuntune or nguo ntuni, meaning "Red People" or "Red Clothes"). The king of the Red People was powerful and often harsh upon his subjects, but no one knows for sure who the Red people actually were.
If we take 'red' to refer to skin colour, then these people were most likely Arabs, for the Europeans had not yet arrived in East Africa. If 'red' refers to dress, however, then their identity if anyone's guess, especially as the Maasai, Samburu and other Nilotic tribes - who are nowadays known for wearing red - only adopted that tradition a century or so ago.
The place where the Meru were enslaved has also not yet been convincingly located. Some say that it was called Bwa or Bwaa (the same name given by other versions of the myth for the body of water the Meru later crossed); others suggest that it may have been Mbwara Matanga on the western peninsula of Manda Island in the Lamu archipelago, off the northeast coast of Kenya; others still posit that it may have been in Yemen or in some other place on the other side of the Red Sea.
Whatever the exact location, this state of bondage lasted until the leader of the Red People started killing all the Meru's male children immediately after birth. But one child, apparently very handsome, escaped this fate, having been kept hidden in the riverside in a basket his mother had made. As a result, the prodigal child became known as Mwithe, the Hidden One.
Mwithe, who also became known as Koomenjwe (Koomenjoe) and Muthurui, grew up to become a very great prophet, and was known as one who had spoken to God. Assisted by another elder called Kauro-Beechau, Mwithe organized a council of wise elders to lead the Meru out of bondage. They went to the leader of the Red People and asked to be set free. The leader agreed, but on condition that an impossible task be successfully performed by the Meru.
This task required them to produce a shoe that had hair on both sides. As shoes were normally made from leather, this took some thinking, until Koomenjwe told the people to cut the dewlap of a bull. Before it was completely severed, it was stitched on the side that had been cut. By the time the bull recovered, the lap had made the shoe that was required. But when they took it to their masters, it was rejected and the Meru were given a second task.
This was to provide a steer (or an ox) that produced diatomite (a very fine chalk). Koomenjwe advised them to feed a calf on milk, and eventually it started passing out white dung. Some versions of the myth have it the other way around: the steer was to produce white dung, and so they fed it on chalk; yet another version replaces the ox with an elephant. Nonetheless, the successful completion of the task was also rejected by the Red People, and they were given a third task to do.
This required them to remove a fruit from a very deep pit, without piercing it or having anyone descend into the pit to pick it up. Koomenjwe advised them to fill the pit with water until it overflowed, and the fruit floated out. Though it succeeded, this test was also rejected.
The next test required them to kill all the elders until their blood flowed like run-off during rains. Koomenjwe advised that the elders be hidden and all old livestock - cows, goats, sheep and donkeys - be killed instead. When that was done their blood was enough to flow as the enemies wanted. But the success of this test was not accepted either.
The fifth test was truly impossible. It required the Meru to forge a spear that could touch both the earth and the sky. The Meru started making it straight away, but it kept breaking. Koomenjwe and the elders, failing to come up with a solution, simply abandoned the whole task of making it, and instead conceived the idea of organizing the people to escape on foot. For this reason, the Meru later on called this spear itumo ria mwito (the spear made for the trek), for it was the impossibility of making it that had given them the idea of the exodus.
In order to have an opportunity to make good their escape, Koomenjwe went to ask the Red People to give them eight days to complete the task. He said the Meru were making charcoal from people's hair because it was the type of charcoal that was required to make the spear. The enemies granted the request.
Koomenjwe organized the first group of old people, because they could not walk fast, and they were grouped together with the older livestock that had remained. The second group was made up of mothers and children, and the third group consisted of young people and young livestock. Keeping the rear were the warriors, well armed and ready for battle. The three groups were, according to some versions, the ancestors of the three main Meru clans from which all other clans descend.
The exodus took place at night. The warriors collected a very big heap of dry dung and animal droppings and set it on fire with all the houses. Meanwhile, Koomenjwe had gone to explain to the masters that the fire they were seeing was being used for making the spear which would be ready by noon the following day. After that, he returned. The following day the enemies waited for the spear, but it was never brought. The Meru had gone.

Mbwaa and the great sacrifice
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During their exodus, the Meru reached a very large body of water which they called Bwaa (or Bwa). Here, they suffered a lot (presumably from their pursuers, or possibly from malnourishment), so much so that a sacrifice had to be made to seek answers, as these could be read from entrails. There are two main versions of this sacrifice.
The first has it that the Meru elders went to a prophet called Mugwe for help (whose name later became the word to describe all prophets and leaders). Mugwe asked for three young men to sacrifice themselves. The three who volunteered were named Gaita, Kiuma and Muthetu, after whom the three main Meru clans are named (all other clans stem from these). When the sacrifice had been concluded, Mugwe instructed the people on how to escape successfully. He placed them under the leadership of Koomenjwe to whom he gave a magic stick or spear (gitumo) about three feet long, with which he was to strike the water to make it part.
The second main version of the sacrifice story says that by then, Koomenjwe was called Muthurui, and it was he who came up with a solution. He had carried out his divination by examining the entrails of cows, goats and other animals, but all without success. As he wondered what to do, it dawned on him that the situation could only be saved by examining the entrails of a human being. He said: "Let someone be examined."
The elders asked: "Who is going to be examined?"
Muthurui begged to be given one person from each family so that if a person from one family failed to give an answer, the next one could be examined. Muthurui's brother offered himself and said: "I am ready to be sacrificed."
Muthurui asked: "Who is going to be his mathinjiro?" (slaughtering leaves or an altar).
Another person volunteered and said: "I will be the one."
Again, Muthurui asked: "In case the first person is not accepted by God, who else will be offered?"
Another said: "I am ready."
Then another person volunteered to provide milk for washing the entrails, and another person provided a string with which the volunteer had to be stitched, and yet another person - having conceived the idea that the first person might fear the operation - went to cut sticks to flog him if he did so. When everything was ready, Muthurui operated on his brother, and got the answer he was looking for. Surprisingly enough, Muthurui's brother did not die. He had only his intestines mounted and stitched, and thereafter was called Murorua.

The crossing of the great water
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Following the answer, Koomenjwe/Muthurui struck the water with his magic spear, and it parted. Some flowed to one side and the rest to the other side, forming a wide corridor of dry land in the middle, along which the people went across.
The crossing of the water lasted all night, and took place in the form of several groups or nchienu. Some versions say there were three groups, who were either identified with those men who had been sacrificed, or were identified with the time of the crossing: the first to cross when it was still dark were the Njiru (black); the second crossed just after dawn and were called Ntune (pale or red); and the last to cross at sunrise were the Njaru (white). Other versions say that there were more groups, either five or seven, who were to become the ancestors of the various Meru clans that exist today; still other versions say that these groups had nothing to do with the clans, but that all the Meru were members of one of these groups.
When the last group had crossed, Koomenjwe/Muthurui struck the water again and it came again into one mass, drowning the army of the Red People who had followed them. So it is that the Meru now say that they came from Bwaa.
The problem for anthropologists and historians alike is put places and dates to these events, which is no easy task given the many variations, fictional elements and elaborations of the myth.
In one version, one of the groups which crossed was the Antu-banthanju. They got to the other side of the water early in the morning, just before sunrise, when the sky was reddish. When this group saw the water they had crossed looking red, they called it Iria Itune: the Red Sea.
Despite the initial excitement of European scholars keen to find confirmation of the literal truth of the Biblical Exodus, it is now generally accepted that the Meru never actually crossed the Red Sea we know now, but that the "Red Sea" mentioned in the myth was most likely Lake Victoria (Nyanza), in the southwest of Kenya. This hasn't been proved beyond doubt, though, and the Manda Island theory remains attractive: according to this, the "Red People" were probably East African coastal Arabs, who had invaded Manda Island around 1700. As this was a time of great expansion for the principalities of the Lamu Archipelago, slaves were needed for cultivation to feed the increasing commercial population, as well as to assist in the menial aspects of the ivory trade. The subsequent flight from enslavement could possibly have been accomplished at low tide across the narrow channel which separates Manda Island from the mainland, whilst a rising tide could have disorganised pursuit.
A third possibility is that the 'Red Sea' was the Tana River in spate. As I've seen with my own eyes, this is for most of the year a relatively small river, but when it floods - as it did in the winter of 1997-98 - the effect is astonishing. Instead of a narrow river, the Tana delta floods huge areas of land to either side of it. As I saw in early 1999, the last floods had left watermarks sometimes five metres up the trunks of trees, below which all leaves and vegetation had died. The colour of the river, too, is red, through carrying so much eroded topsoil, ironically much of it from the present land of the

Very interesting,i never knew Meru's story now someone post Embu's story.This is a good read.Maybe the water body mass is lake Sango.You know we came through that way as historians tell us! I guess you need to check your timelines we checked in a long,long time before Arabs thought about a boat!!

As a follow up to the above myth I am suprised by an English Historian who after watching varied Kenyan traditional dances she commented that Kikuyu Mwomboko dance is in effect an Irish Dance copied by Kikuyus from their colonial masters. Is this the case?
Did Kikuyus also copy the Jewish tradition animal sacrifice & worship below a fig tree [mûti wa Ngai]
Who has facts that can share & educate us on these matters?

There are two excellent thesis work about Meru beliefs, quite freely availabble on the net.

Ameru Beliefs 01

Ameru Beliefs 02

Smug I've also heard serious doubt cast on the authenticity of the Gikuyu and Mumbi story, some even suggesting it was a nationalist creation of the 1920s, in which case I admire any group of people with such inventive skill to have managed to fool most of Kikuyuland for solong. Of course a thousand questions would then follow. This is why those more knowledgeable or with more access to knowledge on this site should share it freely on this site.

I hadn't seen this thread before I did mine. This site really has an excellent search engine,kudos, so ther is a fragmented lot of history on various threads that if consolidated in a page or two in the main page could form an excellent read to those interested. I was particularly fascinated by the gikandi story. I'd love to see those inscriptions. Wangari Maathai says they were on gourds which are in some museum somewhere.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Johnnyk2,

Nyumbas read this article by Mucera Mbogo

I’m a young man in his 20’s and as urbanized as you can imagine so I wouldn’t have known much about our (KIKUYU) culture however about 3 years back, while visiting my relatives in central, I got to learn some very old kikuyu ways of life that resembled Mosaic Laws. i.e the kikuyus had a sorjourner’s granary (ikumbi ria mugendi), the ululation of the kikuyu women (aririririi aririririi) and the ancient praise that was uttered by Jewish women (el ly el ly el ly
/praise him praise him), it was well known in the entire kikuyu land(this inc. Embu and Meru) that when harvesting one was not supposed to go back to collect what fell on the ground it was to be left
for the one without a harvest, I learned that the proto kikuyu were called ‘kabiru’, that wasapere used to circumcize there boys in 8 days after birth however this changed when they began to inter-marry with the Maasai, but most intriging was the description I got of the traditional teachings “KIRIRA”. After researching I can now tell that the nature of kirira resembles that of mystical Jewish teachings KABBALAH. Naturally the kabala began with Avraham(Abraham), it was handed down oraly until when it was first put to writing in the 18th century by jewish Rabii’s
same thing applies to Kirira to date it is ONLY handed down oraly,
I learned that the proto-kikuyu vowed to keep their identity a secret as they sought to protect their identity as they had forght the Templers before settling around Mt. Kenya and surrounding it, this explains why slave trade never took place in this region for they were totaly hostile to the whiteman (shoba)…………. theres more though on my research

Mucera Mbogo