Bobo people
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TheBoboare aMandeethnic group living primarily inBurkina Faso,with some living north inMali.Bobo is also a shortened name of the second-largest city in Burkina Faso,Bobo-Dioulasso.
Background[edit]
In much of the literature onAfrican art,the group that lives in the area of Bobo-Dioulasso is called Bobo-Fing, literally "black Bobo". These people call themselves Bobo and speak theBobo language,aMande language.TheBambara peoplealso call another ethnic group "Bobo", theBobo-Oule/Wule,more precisely called the Bwa. While the Bwa (Bobo-Oule) are a Gur people, speakingGur languages(theBwa languages), the true Bobo (Bobo Madare, Bobo Fing) are aMande people.
Demographics[edit]
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 oldFrench colonialcapital. Further north are large towns, includingFôandKouka,withBourain the extreme north in Mali.
The Bobo are the descendants of an ancient aggregation who assembled around a number of coreclans,none which preserved anyoral traditionsof immigration into the area. TheBobo languageand culture are more closely related to those of their Mandé neighbours to the north and west, theBamana(as well as theMinianka,also known as Mamara Senoufo, and a Gur people) than to their Voltaic neighbours theGurunsiandMossi,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 Bobolineagesclaim a foreign origin, they also say that they are autochthonous.
Economy[edit]
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 redsorghum,pearl millet,yams,andmaize.They also cultivate cotton, which is sold to textile mills inKoudougou.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[edit]
The Bobolineageis 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 individualpatriline.The lineage unites all descendants of a common ancestor, called thewakoma,a word whose stem, wa-, is a contraction of the Bobo word for housewasa.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[edit]
The creator god is calledWuro.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[edit]
- 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[edit]
- The Art of Burkina Fasoby Christopher D. Roy
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