CHAPTER I
THE GUILD OF SMITHS IN KIKUYU AND UKAMBA
The information relating to Kikuyu smiths was mainly collected from Kimani wa Nyaga, of the Gachiko clan, who is one of the senior smiths in Southern Kikuyu.
A smith in Kikuyu is called muturi, plural aturi.
The smiths of the Kikuyu tribe are said to have all come originally from a common centre of distribution at Ithanga, on the south-western side of Mount Kenya.
This scattering of the smiths throughout the tribe is stated to have occurred many generations ago, and the name Ithanga to be that of their common ancestor, but now the term Ithanga has become a synonym for a sub-clan of the A-Gachiko, and not all the members of this sub-clan are smiths.
It may be that the ancestor Ithanga was a migrant from another tribe and the first person to bring into the tribe the knowledge of working in iron. There appears to be, however, no legend as to who invented the act of smelting or working in iron; it therefore looks as if the craft were imported. It was certainly not learnt from the Dorobo or Asi aboriginals, for the Kikuyu declare that when their forefathers came into the country, the Asi had no smiths, and to this day they have none. It is believed that the ancestors of the Dorobo were the people who made the stone implements now being so widely found.
The Masai, however, appear to have had amongst them for a long period a clan of serfs called El-Konono, who are their smiths.
In former times, the ancestors of the Kikuyu dug [[168]]out nodules of ironstone at Ithanga, and also collected iron sand washed down by the rain from the hill. This is probably the place described by Routledge, p. 80 et seq., of his book. The ironstone was smelted with charcoal made from the mutumaiyu tree (Olea chrysophylla) and forged with charcoal from the mutarakwa tree (Juniperus procera).