Here the author traces the intertwined destinies of two families over three generations. Lord Valentine Treverton is representative of the upper-class Britishers who founded white settlements in Kenya: hardworking, determined to wrest a coffee crop from East Africa's fertile soil, he is also arrogantly ignorant of the ancient traditions of the natives who call their home Kikuyuland. When Treverton cuts down a sacred fig tree on his new plantation, medicine woman Mama Wachera puts a curse (thahu) on the Treverton family until "the land is returned to the children of Mumbi."