The Iron Snake is an ancient tribal prophecy attributed to both the
Maasai Maasai may refer to:
* Maasai people
*Maasai language
* Maasai mythology
* MAASAI (band)
See also
* Masai (disambiguation)
* Massai
Massai (also known as: Masai, Massey, Massi, Mah–sii, Massa, Wasse, Wassil or by the nickname "Big Foot" Mas ...
and
Kĩkũyũ
The Kikuyu (also ''Agĩkũyũ/Gĩkũyũ'') are a Bantu ethnic group native to Central Kenya. At a population of 8,148,668 as of 2019, they account for 17.13% of the total population of Kenya, making them Kenya's largest ethnic group.
The t ...
tribes in Kenya in which a railway is described as an iron snake.
The iron snake would someday cross their land and would be a bad omen creating trouble as it went.
The religious gikuyu prophet Mugo wa Kibiru prophesied the coming of the whites many years before they arrived on the coast. In eastern Kenya the prophecy was attributed to Masaku, a Kamba sage and chief, and Mwenda Mwea a famous medicine man as well as a seer from Embu. They both saw a black snake coming and all the cattle disappearing, plundered from the Africans by the ‘red people,’ as the early white colonizers would be known. In western Kenya,
Kimnyole the Nandi Orkoiyot also predicted the arrival of Europeans (''the white tribe'') and the railways (''the Iron Snake'') who were to change everything for the Nandi.
A similar end-of-the-world myth speaking of ''snakes of iron'' appears in the
Hopi
The Hopi are a Native American ethnic group who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona, United States. As of the 2010 census, there are 19,338 Hopi in the country. The Hopi Tribe is a sovereign nation within the Unite ...
tradition of the New World as the fourth sign on Hopi tablets.
[Waters, F, and Fredericks, O. B., The Book of the Hopi. 1985. Viking Press.]
In literature
In 1965,
Ronald Hardy published a book about the building of the East African Railroad called The Iron Snake (Collins, London).
''The Iron Snake'' also appears as the title of a novel about the same railroad by John Gaudet published by Brandylane Publishers, Richmond, Virginia.
References
{{Reflist
Kenyan culture