[1] His nom de guerre, Kubu Kubu, means "heavy thud" in Kîembu, referencing to the thud his feet made due to his heavy build.
He was the de facto Mau Mau military leader in the Embu county, and an important leader nationally, alongside Dedan Kimathi, Musa Mwariama, and Waruhiu Itote.
[2] Kubu Kubu was revered among the Embu for defending their territory from British rule, leading the community for more than ten years, and repulsing colonial settlers from the southern Kenyan highlands.
Njagi wa Ikutha was born sometime in the late 1920s in a heavily forested area in Mukuuri, close to the current site of the Kubu Kubu Memorial Boarding Primary School, Embu County.
In 1987, former Embu North Constituency (later split into Runyenjes and Manyatta) legislator Stanley Nyagah built a modern boarding primary school in Kubu Kubu's memory, where his body was burned in 1955.