The bustling town of Juja which sits 33 kilometers away from Nairobi is known for being home to Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), its rapid real estate and industrial growth, great infrastructure which is fueled by its proximity to country’s capital. However, over a century ago , it was famous for all the wrong reasons, marred with superstitions and dark magic.
In the 1900, a white settler named William Northrup McMillan arrived in Kenya during a hunting trip and was mesmerized by the robust lands of the country. He had with him 2 statues he had bought in West Africa which he had been told had immense magical power.
The instructions from traditional West Africa healers were never to part with the statues and to preserve them or else he himself would perish at sea. And lo and behold, the statues had names – one was called Ju and the other, Ja.
McMillan would later purchase 19,000 acres of land near Thika, defying a law that stipulated that no one at the time was allowed to own more than 5,000 acres. He attributed his extraordinary luck to the power of his two idols Ju and Ja. He named his land in honour of the statues and was christened Juja Farm.
At the same time, he also procures a town home in Chiromo, Nairobi from his friend Colonel Ewart Grogen.
Word spread like wildfire of the existence of the idols, and as superstitions were peddled, the more afraid locals became of the farm, staying away believing it was jinxed and refusing to offer labor to the settler. It is said that McMillan’s wife Lady Lucie was so frustrated that in an effort to save the situation, she took the sculptures and buried them in Ndarugu Valley, near Thika Town.
This attempt to manage the damage was unsuccessful – the name Juja persisted. In fact it seemed as though the town’s original name, ‘Weru wa Ndarugu’, which means the plains of Ndarugu, had been obscured and consigned to history.
The news of the loss of Ju and Ja infuriated McMillan, and he resorted to build a massive house near the mountain to console himself. The mansion would host some of the wildest parties in early colonial Kenya, and among notable friends who attended include former US President Theodore Roosevelt and former UK prime minister Winston Churchill who was Minister of Colonies at the time.
Even with the disappearance of his precious idols, many believe that McMillan was never alone, and something lurked in the dark corners of the man’s life. He was surrounded by a presence that seemed to jinx his life.
During one of the parties, President Theodore and his son were offered the townhouse in Chiromo by McMillan to crash after a heavy night of drinking. While driving around, they noticed and stole lion statues from Khoja Mosque, which it sparked outrage from the Islamic community in the country. The colonial government would then quietly retrieve the statues from the Chiromo residence and bury them at Juja Farm to quiet the unrest.
The curse from the lost idols would lead to McMillan’s death at sea in 1925, just as he had been warned back in West Africa when he purchased them. The 53-year-old tower of a man with a heart to match was buried on the summit of Ol-Donyo Sabuk as per his will so that his grave would overlook the thousands of acres of land he owned.
The farm’s name,Juja, would remain as even new settlers took over the farm, and tales surrounding the disappearance of the idols would continue until they were long forgotten.
