Two different subtribes of the Mossi people,…

Two different subtribes of the Mossi people, the Yonyonse and the Ninsi, inhabit the central plateau of what is today Burkina Faso.

They have been in constant conflict until 1441 when Wubri, a Yonyonse hero and an important figure in Burkina Faso’s history, leads his tribe to victory.

He now renames the area from “Kumbee-Tenga”, as the Ninsi had called it, to “Wogodogo”, meaning "where people get honor and respect."

The structures of this and similar Mossi states seem to have been erected about the fifteenth century by relatively small bands of immigrants who eventually merged with the autochthonous Gur-speaking inhabitants of the Volta basin.

Their success in conquering and organizing the Gur villages into kingdoms seems to have been due to their possession of cavalry, which subsequently will remain a badge of royalty and of aristocracy.