The Uzuri Tribe is an African community that has inhabited a small village in Kenya. It was once a home to 12-year-old Ororo Munroe, whose extraordinary mutant power to manipulate the weather has elevated her to a revered status akin to that of a goddess among her people.[1]
History
The Uzuri people are an African community that have lived in a small village in Kenya. After losing her parents in Egypt, 12-year-old Ororo Munroe travelled through many countries in the search of her mother's homeland. She went through the Serengeti in Tanzania, eventually reaching its border with Kenya and settled in the Uzuri village, near the Mount Kilimanjaro. Ororo was taken in by an elderly tribal woman named Ainet Mwangi. Ororo soon became the object of worship of the local tribes in the large area of Kenya and Tanzania, from the Serengeti Plains, to Ngorongoro and Lake Manyara. For her powers she was worshipped as the Goddess of Harvest and the Goddess of Storm.[1][2][3][4]
Once, when their village was going through a terrible drought, Storm commanded rain for days just to help them. By doing this, she threw off the natural order of nature, and droughts were formed over numerous other villages, and hundreds of animals were killed. Sensing the damage she had done, Ainet taught her to be responsible with her powers and how she could fix the problem by properly distributing rain.[2] Overtime Ororo began to question her role as a goddess.[5]
During another drought, the villagers formed a dam in the dry river, and Ororo planned to start a rain to fill it with water. However, her control over the storm was hijacked by Deluge. He used his own powers to drastically increase the storm in size, planning to use it to devastate the planet. The plane with the young X-Men, Cyclops, Jean Grey and Beast was caught in the storm and their crashed down. Ororo rescued Beast and brought him to her village. They then reunited with Cyclops and Jean as well and worked together to stop Deluge. Jean telepathically connected minds of Beast and Ororo, Beast explained to her in details how to use water droplets to form a giant lens in the sky and they focused it on Cyclops to let him absorb sunlight and channel it into optic blasts to attack Deluge. Deluge was initially happy to absorb more energy, but was quickly overloaded and then exploded. Ororo bid them farewell, and returned to her village. Beast suspected that she was a mutant, and planned to inform their teacher, Professor Charles Xavier. Jean confirmed that Ororo was a mutant and told the reast that Xavier already knew about Ororo for several years.[6]
Some time later Professor Xavier visited the village and convinced Ororo that she wasn't a goddess, but a mutant like him and the X-Men. He offered her a place among the X-Men, hoping she would accept. She agreed, marking the start of her journey as a superheroine Storm, dedicated to protecting both mutants and humans.[1]
Years later the Shadow King infiltrated the Uzuri tribe, assuming the guise of the spider god Anansi and instilling dread in their hearts. Seizing control of Ainet, he ensnared her psyche while commandeering her physical form. Prompted by a distressing missive from Ainet, Storm journeyed back to her homeland, only to find her village ensnared in shadowy machinations. Ainet, seemingly possessed by the deity Ananasi, dragged the X-Men into the Astral Plane, where a fierce battle erupted between Psylocke, Storm, and the insidious entity. Despite Ainet's attempts to aid them, the Shadow King's revelation shattered the illusion. In the psychic plane, Psylocke and Ainet joined forces to locate Storm, offering solace amid her despair and absolving her of blame. Meanwhile, Storm and Ainet rallied to rescue their comrades from the Shadow King's clutches. As Psylocke engaged the malevolent force, unity prevailed, forcing each psyche back into its corporeal vessel. With the Shadow King vanquished, Ainet extended a comforting hand to Psylocke, acknowledging the weight of her loss.[7]
However, her departure caused a rift in the tribe, and a new religion that worshipped the dark god Uovu emerged. Ainet was killed by Uovu's followers for refusing to denounce Ororo as a goddess. Her prayers that Ororo was granted the power of divinity resulted in the summoning of the Asgardian hammer Stormcaster to her adopted daughter's side. Due to the area's limited communications, news of Ainet's death didn't reach Storm until a month afterward. As soon as she learned of Ainet's passing, Ororo traveled to Uzuri to pay respects.[8] She became wary of Uovu and eventually discovered that he kept in a secret catacomb the bodies of almost a hundred of people his worshippers had killed over the years. When Ororo confronted Uovu about this discovery, he reanimated the bodies under his command, including Ainet.[9] Following Uovu's destruction, the undead were freed from his control and vanished afterward. Before turning to dust, Ainet comforted Ororo about her feelings of guilt and the belief that she had left behind the village when she joined the X-Men, assuring Ororo that she didn't abandon Uzuri, but rather gave herself to the world.[10]Trivia
- The name "Ororo" means "beauty".[11] It is unknown if the name "Uzuri" was chosen randomly or intentionally; it is located in Kenya, where Swahili is one of the official languages and "uzuri" means "beauty" in Swahili.
See Also
- 9 appearance(s) of Uzuri Tribe (Earth-616)
- 1 minor appearance(s) of Uzuri Tribe (Earth-616)
- 1 mention(s) of Uzuri Tribe (Earth-616)
- 4 image(s) of Uzuri Tribe (Earth-616)
- 7 member(s) of Uzuri Tribe (Earth-616)