The Bobo are a
Mande ethnic group living primarily in
Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana t ...
, with some living north in
Mali
Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Ma ...
. Bobo is also a shortened name of the second-largest city in Burkina Faso,
Bobo-Dioulasso
Bobo-Dioulasso is a city in Burkina Faso with a population of 904,920 (); it is the second-largest city in the country, after Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso's capital. The name means "home of the Bobo-Dioula".
The local Bobo-speaking population (re ...
.
Background
In much of the literature on
African art
African art describes the modern and historical paintings, sculptures, installations, and other visual culture from native or indigenous Africans and the African continent. The definition may also include the art of the African diasporas, such ...
, the group that lives in the area of Bobo-Dioulasso is called Bobo-Fing, literally "black Bobo". These people call themselves Bobo and speak the
Bobo language
The Bobo language is a Mande language of Burkina Faso and Mali; the western city of Bobo Dioulasso is named partly for the Bobo people
The Bobo are a Mande ethnic group living primarily in Burkina Faso, with some living north in Mali. Bobo ...
, a
Mande language. The
Bambara people
The Bambara ( bm, ߓߡߊߣߊ߲, italics=no, ''Bamana'' or ''Banmana'') are a Mandé ethnic group native to much of West Africa, primarily southern Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Senegal. They have been associated with the historic Bambara Empi ...
also call another ethnic group "Bobo", the
Bobo-Oule/Wule, more precisely called the Bwa. While the Bwa (Bobo-Oule) are a Gur people, speaking
Gur languages (the
Bwa languages), the true Bobo (Bobo Madare, Bobo Fing) are a
Mande people.
Demographics
The Bobo number about 110,000 people, with the great majority in Burkina Faso. The major Bobo community in the south is Bobo-Dioulasso, the second-largest city of Burkina Faso and the old
French colonial capital. Further north are large towns, including and
Kouka, with
Boura in the extreme north in Mali.
The Bobo are far from homogeneous. They are an ancient aggregation of several peoples who have assembled around a number of core
clans that do not preserve any
oral traditions of immigration into the area.
Their language and culture are more closely related to those of their Mandé neighbours to the north and west, the
Bamana (as well as the
Minianka, also known as Mamara Senoufo, and a Gur people) than to their Voltaic neighbours the
Gurunsi
Gurunsi or Grusi may refer to:
* Gurunsi people, a people of northern Ghana and south and central Burkina Faso
** Gurunsi languages
The Grũsi or Gurunsi languages, also known as the East Mabia languages,Bodomo, Adams. 2020.Mabia: Its Etymologic ...
and
Mossi, but they should be thought of as a southern extension of the Mandé people who live in what is now Burkina Faso, rather than an intrusive Mandé group that has recently penetrated the region. Although over 41% of Bobo
lineages claim a foreign origin, they also say that they are autochthonous.
Economy
Farming among the Bobo is of primary importance. Agricultural activity is not merely a way of providing for subsistence among the Bobo, it is the essential component of their day-to-day existence. The major food crops are red
sorghum,
pearl millet,
yams, and
maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American English, North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous ...
. They also cultivate cotton, which is sold to textile mills in
Koudougou
Koudougou is a city in Burkina Faso's Boulkiemdé Province. It is located west of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. With a population of 160,239 (2019) it is the third most populous city in Burkina Faso after Ouagadougou and Bobo Dio ...
. The imposition of colonial rule and the construction of these mills led to the disintegration of the local co-operative labor systems, which had served to bond the members of Bobo society together.
Political system
The Bobo
lineage
Lineage may refer to:
Science
* Lineage (anthropology), a group that can demonstrate its common descent from an apical ancestor or a direct line of descent from an ancestor
* Lineage (evolution), a temporal sequence of individuals, populat ...
is the fundamental social building-block. The Bobo are an inherently decentralized group of people. The concept of placing political power in the hands of an individual is foreign to the Bobo. Each village is organized according to the relationship among individual
patriline. The lineage unites all descendants of a common ancestor, called the ''wakoma'', a word whose stem, wa-, is a contraction of the Bobo word for house ''wasa''. The Bobo lineage comprises the people who live in a common house. The head of a lineage is called the wakoma or father of the lineage. He may also be called the sapro, which is the term for ancestors. As among other peoples in Burkina, each clan has a totem, so that when a Bobo introduces himself he gives his given name, then his clan name, followed by the totem that he respects.
Religion
The creator god is called
Wuro. He cannot be described and is not represented by sculptures. Bobo cosmogony describes the creation of the world by Wuro and the ordering of his creations. He is responsible for the ordering of all things in the world into opposing pairs: man/spirits, male/female, village/bush, culture/nature and so on.
The balances between forces as they were created by Wuro are precarious, and it is easy for men to throw the forces out of balance. Farming, for instance, can unbalance the precarious equilibrium between culture/nature and village/bush when the crops are gathered in the bush and brought into the village.
For the Bobo people there are two important epochs. The time of Wuro, when the universe was created and the historical time, when Wuro gave man his son Dwo.
Sources
* Christopher Roy: Art of the Upper Volta Rivers. Traduction et adaptation en francais F.Chaffin. Alain et Françoise Chaffin, Meudon, 1987
* Guy Le Moal : Les Bobo. Nature et fonction des masques. Musée royale de l'Afrique centrale, Tervuren, 1999.
External links
The Art of Burkina Fasoby Christopher D. Roy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bobo People
Ethnic groups in Burkina Faso
Ethnic groups in Mali
Mandé people