Mossi

People of Burkina Faso and other parts of western Africa, mainly Mali and Togo. They speak Mooré, a Gur language of the Niger-Congo family. Mossi society, organized as in the former Mossi states (c. 1500–1895), is divided into royalty, nobles, commoners, and formerly slaves. The morho naba (“big lord”) occupies a court in Ouagadougou. In the colonial era the Mossi acted as trading intermediaries between the forest states and the cities of the Niger. Today most of the nearly six million Mossi are sedentary farmers.

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