The sacred tree

In the nineteenth century, Mugo Kibiru, a famous prophet of the Kikuyu tribe, foretold that a fig tree at Thika, twenty-six miles north of Nairobi, would wither and die on the day that Kenya gained independence. 十九世纪，基库尤部落一个著名的先知Mugo Kibiru 预言，内罗比南部26英里的塞卡，有一棵树，它将会在肯尼亚获得独立的那一天，枯萎和死亡。

Kibiru also prophesied that Kenya would become a white man’s colony, but that one day the white man would return the land to the Africans. Kibiru还预言肯尼亚将变成白人的殖民地，但是有一天白人会把这块土地归还给非洲人。

He foresaw the coming of the railway which he described as ‘an iron snake with many legs, like an earthworm’. 他预言了铁路的到来，他描述铁路象一个有很多腿的铁的蛇，象蚯蚓。

Kibiru’s prophecies proved to be so accurate that for many years the tree at Thika was regarded as sacred. Kibiru的不少预言显示得如此准确，以至于许多年来塞卡的这棵树被象神一样尊重。

Even the white mem took the prophecy seriously, for they built the tree up with earth and put a concrete wall around it so that it would not fall.甚至，白人也严肃的接受了这个预言，因为他们用泥土支撑这棵树，并且围着它建起了混凝土墙，为了让它不倒。

These measures were doomed to fail.这些措施注定是失败的。

Shortly before Kenya gained independence, the tree was struck by lightning and it began to wither rapidly.肯尼亚独立不久前，这棵树被闪电击中，它变得迅速枯萎。

By the day Kenya officially became independent, it had decayed completely, fulfilling the prophecy made over seventy years before by Kibiru.到了肯尼亚正式独立的那一天，它彻底枯萎了，这个自我证实的预言走完了七十多年前被Kibiru预言的行程。