NGUGI WA THIONG’O’S COSMOGONIC META-MYTH IN THE PERFECT NINE: THE EPIC OF GIKUYU AND MUMBI (KENDA MUIYURI: RUGANO RWA GIKUYU NA MUMBI)

Abstract

This study seeks to review, analyses and evaluate the presentation of the Kikuyu myth of origin as presented in Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s narrative verse; Kenda Muiyuru: Rugano Rwa Gikuyu na Mumbi (The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gikuyu and Mumbi.). The study is primarily a critical textual analyses of the author’s original publication in Gikuyu language, but also refers to oral traditions and oral literature of the Kikuyu people. The paper critics the mythic formation of the Kikuyu nation through the ten (‘perfect nine’) daughters and explores symbolic significance of the journey motif exploited by the writer in this version of narrating the Kikuyu nation. The study further explores how Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s rendition is a metaphor for an African renaissance that can only be achieved by retracing the steps to the beginning (origin). The return to the primordial times, travelling the road of the forefathers may occasion the understanding of the current African space and time. This will eventually lead to recreation of a stable and just Africa ridded off the jinx of colonial ogres of cultural and economic domination. In the process, the study explores Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s ultimate romantic feminist vision that proposes gender equity as the base for the creation of a stable self-sustaining and prosperous society.