Gonja (also Ghanjawiyyu, endonym Ngbanya) was a kingdom in northern
Ghana
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and Tog ...
founded in 1675 by
Sumaila Ndewura Jakpa.
The word can also refer to the people of this kingdom.
Origin
The Gonja are a
Guan people
The Guan people are an ethnic group found almost in all parts of Ghana, including the Nkonya tribe, the Gonja, Anum, Larteh, Nawuri and Ntsumburu.
They primarily speak the Guan languages of the Niger-Congo language family. They make up 3.7% ...
who have been influenced by
Dagbon,
Akan, Mande and
Hausa people. With the fall of the
Songhai Empire (c. 1600), the
Mande Ngbanya clan moved south, crossing the
Black Volta and founding a city at
Yagbum Yagbum was the capital city of the Gonja (kingdom) founded by Naba'a of the Ngbanya dynasty. Naba'a reigned from 1552/3 to 1582/3.
It is now northern Ghana, near the Black Volta
The Black Volta or Mouhoun is a river that flows through Burkina ...
. The Gonja kingdom was originally divided into sections overseen by male siblings of
Sumaila Ndewura Jakpa including their children and grandchildren.
Under the leadership of
Naba'a, the Ngbanya dynasty of Gonja was founded. The capital was established at
Yagbum Yagbum was the capital city of the Gonja (kingdom) founded by Naba'a of the Ngbanya dynasty. Naba'a reigned from 1552/3 to 1582/3.
It is now northern Ghana, near the Black Volta
The Black Volta or Mouhoun is a river that flows through Burkina ...
.
The Ngbanya expanded rapidly, conquering several neighbors in the
White Volta valley and beginning a profitable gold trade with the
Akan states through nearby
Begho
Bono State (or Bonoman) was a trading state created by the Bono people, located in what is now southern Ghana. Bonoman was a medieval Akan kingdom in what is now Bono, Bono East and Ahafo region respectively named after the (Bono and Ahafo) a ...
. By 1675, the Gonja established a
paramount chief
A paramount chief is the English-language designation for the highest-level political leader in a regional or local polity or country administered politically with a chief-based system. This term is used occasionally in anthropological and arc ...
, called the
Yagbongwura
List of rulers of Gonja, a kingdom located in the north of Ghana
(Dates in italics indicate ''de facto ''continuation of office)
See also
*Ghana
* Gold Coast
*Lists of office-holders
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gonja, Rulers
Rulers
A ruler, s ...
, to control the kingdom. The Ngbanya dynasty has controlled this position from its founding to the present day, with only two brief
interregnums. The current Yagbongwura, ''Tuntumba Sulemana Jakpa Bore Essa'', has held his position since 2010.
Precolonial Gonja society was stratified into
caste
Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultur ...
s, with a ruling class, a
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
trader class, an
animist commoner class, and a
slave class. Its economy depended largely on trade in
slaves from
Central Africa
Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Co ...
and
kola nuts, particularly through the market town of
Salaga, sometimes called the "
Timbuktu of the South."
The
Gonja language, properly called Ngbanya or Ngbanyito, is a
Tano language within the
Kwa languages
The Kwa languages, often specified as New Kwa, are a proposed but as-yet-undemonstrated family of languages spoken in the south-eastern part of Ivory Coast, across southern Ghana, and in central Togo. The name was introduced 1895 by Gottlob ...
family, closely related to
Akan languages.
Aspect and Modality in Kwa Languages
books.google.com. Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...
.
See also
* Rulers of the Northern state of Gonja
References
* Jack Goody, "The social organisation of the LoWiili", Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
, 1956
* Jack Goody, The Ethnology of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast, West of the White Volta, 1958
* Jack Goody, Death, Property and the Ancestors: A study of the mortuary customs of the Lodagaa of West Africa, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1962
* Jack Goody and J.A. Braimah, "Salaga: The Struggle for Power", London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, Longmans, 1967
* Jack Goody, The Myth of the Bagre, Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
, 1972
* Goody, Esther and Jack Goody. "The Circulation of Women and Children in Northern Ghana." '' Man, New Series.'' 2.2 (1967): 226-248.
* Wilks, Ivor. " Wangara, Akan and Portuguese in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries II: The Struggle for Trade." ''Journal of African History
''The Journal of African History'' (JAH) is a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal. It was established in 1960 and is published by Cambridge University Press. It was among the first specialist journals to be devoted to African history and ar ...
'' 23:4 (1982): 463-472.
External links
Ethnologue entry on Gonja language
Gonja Association of North America
Official website of the Gonja Association of Ghana
{{authority control
Ethnic groups in Ghana
History of Ghana