Burkinabe

PRONUNCIATION: bur-kin-ah-BAY
ALTERNATE NAMES: (former) Upper Voltans
LOCATION: Burkina Faso
POPULATION: 15,264,735
LANGUAGE: French, Gur Group (Niger-Congo family of languages), Bobo-Dioulasso
RELIGION: Islam, traditional religions, Christianity
RELATED ARTICLES: Vol. 1: Dyula; Mossi; Tuaregs

INTRODUCTION

Burkina Faso is one of the economically poorest countries in Africa, and one of the least known to Americans. Known as Upper Volta until 1984, the former French colony has struggled against drought, isolation with respect to transportation for exports, and a general lack of money for development. The new name, Burkina Faso, was adopted as part of the Revolution of 1983 to signify a fresh start for the country, and is a name created from words of three languages in the country to mean “country of upright or incorruptible men.” The shorter form Burkina is commonly used; Burkinabe is the adjectival form of the name and is the singular and plural term for the country's citizens.

Burkina Faso was one of the last parts of Africa to be conquered by Europeans. The French conquered it in 1896–97, just ahead of expeditions of the British from what is now Ghana and Germans from Togo. The French, much more than the British, intended to assimilate the peoples they ruled to French values and institutions. However, the lack of money to support the colonial regime in Burkina Faso meant that the French had to rely upon the traditional rulers, especially the kings and chiefs of the Mossi, the largest ethnic group, to administer the colony.

The colony went bankrupt during the Great Depression, and from 1933 until 1947 Upper Volta was divided between Soudan (now Mali), Niger, and Côte d'Ivoire. The restoration of the colony was due in part to the postwar alliance of pro-independence African political leaders like Félix Houphouët-Boigny in the latter colony with the French communist party, the only French party willing to even consider such a step. Upper Volta was recreated in order to reduce Houphouët-Boigny's territory and to reward the leading Mossi king, the Mogho Naba, for his support in turning out unpaid labor to extend the Abidjan railroad, the country's link to the outside world, from the Western city of Bobo-Dioulasso to the capital, Ouagadougou.

Burkina Faso became independent in 1960, but it remains closely linked to France. In the 1960s and 1970s, three civilian governments were overthrown by the military in bloodless coups-d'état, but series of coups in the 1980s turned Upper Volta from a major recipient of Western foreign aid to a revolutionary government and back again to a country cooperating with the World Bank's “Structural Adjustment” program to increase free-market economies.

By the early 1900s the French had imposed taxation on the new colony, taxes required to be paid in French francs. This required Burkinabe peoples, who previously had used cowry shells from the Indian Ocean as money, to grow, mine, make, or do something that French were willing to pay for, which was the intent of the tax program. Because little could be grown for sale in Burkina, many people worked as migrant laborers in the coffee and cocoa farms and mines of the British Gold Coast Colony and the Côte d'Ivoire. For the first two-thirds of the century this migration was largely seasonal, as the agriculturally dead dry season at home in Burkina coincided with the peak demand for farm labor in the coastal countries' farms.

Since the 1960s, the original, seasonal migration has given way to longer-term settlement in these countries. Burkinabe were 11% of the population of Côte d'Ivoire in the 1988 census. There the Mossi are said to be the second-largest ethnic group. Burkinabe who once worked as laborers on Ivoirien farms now have cocoa or coffee farms of their own, or work in urban trades and professions.

Many Burkinabe, especially Mossi, served the French colonial army. The famous troops known as the “Senegalese Sharpshooters” (Tirailleurs Sénégalais) were in fact recruited all over French West Africa, and Burkinabe were especially heavily represented. Mossi and others from Burkina Faso fought for France in both world wars, in Indo-China, and in Algeria. For many years the pensions of these veterans were such an important source of foreign currency to the Burkinabe government that the president would personally hold the cabinet post for veterans' affairs.

The country gained independence from France in 1960, and Maurice Yameogo became the first president. Yameogo was overthrown in a military coup in 1966 because of rampant corruption in his administration. For two decades, the country continued to experience political instability. In 1983 Th omas Sankara took control of the government and conducted a nationalist and socialist policy that placed priority on the rural population. He came to be seen as a champion of the people. However, he remained unpopular with tribal chiefs and the government elite. In 1987, he was ousted and assassinated by his second in command, Blaise Compaore, who has remained in power since then, in spite of adopting a constitution in 1991 that allows multi-party elections.

LOCATION AND HOMELAND

Burkina Faso is located in West Africa, in the interior savanna north of Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, and Benin. It is bounded to the west and north by Mali and by Niger to the east and north. It is slightly larger than Colorado. Most of the country is gently rolling savanna, with grasslands dotted with trees and areas of scrub brush. The country is infrequently broken by rock outcroppings or small mesas.

The population of Burkina Faso was estimated to be 15.3 million people in 2008. A French sample survey of 10% of the national population in the early 1960s estimated that 48% of the population was Mossi and 10.4% Fulani (Peulh). Other ethnic groups made up 4–7% each; these included the Bisa, who were the original inhabitants of the southern part of the country where the Mossi states formed; Gourmantche, who are related to the Mossi and have traditional states east of them; and Gourounsi, Lobi, and Dagari, peoples on the southern and western edges of the Mossi kingdoms who share a similar way of life and speak related languages, but who do not have political organizations larger than clans defined by kinship relations. The Bobo and Senoufo in western and southwestern Burkina are culturally and linguistically related to the Mande-speaking peoples of Mali.

The 48% figure for the Mossi has been suspected of being a deliberate undercount in order to deny a demographic majority to the people who already dominated the new nation's government. Because ethnicity remained a sensitive subject, the national censuses of 1975 and 1985 did not publish ethnic totals for the whole population. Current estimates are based on those 35 year-old figures. On that basis, roughly 5 million Burkinabe are Mossi. A 1996 United States government figure estimates only 24% for the Mossi, while a 1995 linguistic reference book estimates Mossi at 53% of the population.

LANGUAGE

French is the official language of the country, of schools, and official publications. Except for the Mande-related languages of Bobo-Dioulasso and the west of the country, most Burkinabe speak languages of the Gur group within the large Niger-Congo family of languages. Gur-speaking peoples in Burkina and adjacent parts of Benin, Togo, and Ghana share a generally similar way of life as millet farmers, with some (like the Mossi and the Dagomba and Mamprussi in Ghana) having kingdoms and chieftaincies, while others are organized only along kinship principles.

FOLKLORE

The Mossi and Gourmantche peoples of Burkina are notable in the history of the West African savanna in that their ruling elites did not convert to Islam when others did. While there always have been Muslims in Burkina who were literate in Arabic, the bulk of Burkinabe history, law, and tradition was passed down orally.

RELIGION

The resistance of the Mossi and Gourmantche to the widespread introduction of Islam to the West African savanna during the 10th–11th centuries was a consequence of the close connection between political power and its validation by traditional religion. For a man to rule others, he must have received the religious right to do so, the nam, conferred only on one chosen and installed as a chief or king according to religious tradition. Occasional Mossi kings did convert as individuals but without lasting consequences. Mossi and other Burkinabe cultures, however, have many elements of Islamic origin.

The traditional religion of the peoples of Burkina is similar to that of many African peoples. There is a three-part view of the supernatural. An all-powerful god created the world and remains a force, but is too distant and important to have much interest in the activities of human beings. Less powerful, but more important, are spirits of earth and air that govern rainfall and soil fertility; these are tied to local places and affect local conditions. Offerings and prayers to them are made at natural features like rock outcrops or sacred trees.

Third, and most important in the success of daily life, is the influence of one's ancestors. Burkinabe peoples, again like many African societies, see the family as extending across time, from founding ancestors through those members alive now, to unborn future generations. Living members have a responsibility to their ancestors to maintain family land and to marry and have children to carry the family into the future. The ancestors watch over their living descendents and can reward or punish their behavior.

There has always been Muslim Mossi, especially long-distance traders for whom Islam was a common bond with traders elsewhere in the savanna. There are Mossi farmers who are descended from traders, however, who remained Muslim. The peoples closer to the great Muslim societies north, east, and west of Burkina have experienced proportionately greater Muslim influence. Moreover, when the French conquest suggested that the traditional supernatural powers were insuffi-cient to protect people, there was greater conversion to Islam and Christianity.

Current figures estimate the Muslim population at 50%, with 40% following traditional religions and 10% Christian; the latter are mainly Roman Catholic due to the French colonial history. The first African cardinal, Paul Zoungrana, was the archbishop of Ouagadougou and a Mossi. The Protestant population is around 1% and represents the work of American missionaries.

MAJOR HOLIDAYS

Originally, the national holidays were December 11, the anniversary of the proclamation of the Republic of Upper Volta in 1958, and August 5, anniversary of the date of full independence in 1960. After the 1983 revolution led by Th omas Sankara, the national holiday became its anniversary, August 4. The government and schools also observe all the major Christian and Muslim holidays, including Easter, Christmas, ‘id al-Fitr, the end of the month's fast of Ramadan, and the festival of Tabaski (‘id al-Kabir), when Muslim households sacrifice a ram to honor God's testing of Abraham's faith by asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac.

RITES OF PASSAGE

There are no rites of passage at the national level, except for universal events like school graduations. The ethnic groups in Burkina Faso do mark the various transitions in a person's life with public rituals. These include the formal naming of a baby and its announcement to the community at a set time after its birth, the circumcision and instruction of pre-adolescent boys and (separately) girls, marriage as the assumption of full adult status, and funerals, which mark the moving of the deceased from living elder to watching ancestor. Burials, necessarily soon after death in a tropical country, are distinct from funerals, although both are public ceremonies. Funerals may come years after a death, when the next of kin (usually the eldest son) is able to be present and to afford the cost of the ceremony and associated feast.

INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS

While cities and towns always have existed in Burkina, the vast majority of the population has lived in rural farming communities. The 1985 national census showed 12.7% of the population living in towns of 10,000 or greater, up from 4.7% just after independence in 1960. The two biggest cities, Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso, had estimated populations in 1991 of 634,479 and 268,926; the next largest town in the 1985 census had a population of 38,902. Recent estimates indicate that the two biggest cities, Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso, had populations of 1,181,702 and 435,543 respectively. The bulk of the population, then, lives in villages surrounded by neighbors who usually are also relatives, since land is allocated by kinship ties. That in turn reinforces a society in which people are conscious of the ongoing family to which they belong, for whose well-being they are responsible, and whose land they farm and live on, but do not individually own and cannot sell. Respect for those older than oneself is a cornerstone of Burkinabe (and most African) societies.

A poor country with limited resources, Burkina offers little in the way of social security payments. This means that even urban wage-earners maintain links to their rural families, where they have an absolute right to land and support in their old age.

LIVING CONDITIONS

For those who live in rural villages, life has changed little over the centuries, although some modern conveniences have been introduced. Most people live in adobe houses with thatched roofs. Electricity is available only in towns and cities; therefore, radios are battery-powered and lanterns are kerosene or battery-powered. As the population has increased, firewood for cooking is increasingly difficult to find and women must walk greater distances for it. In rural areas water for drinking, cooking, animals, and washing comes from wells; the building of deeper, cement-lined wells has increased the number that do not go dry during the dry season, and made hauling water easier. Water is carried from the well to the house in large pottery containers carried on the heads of women.

Health issues remain significant. Malaria is chronic and widespread; anyone falling ill with another disease most likely already has malarial parasites and is weakened. The cost of imported malaria-suppressing medicines puts them out of reach for most Burkinabe. Measles remains a significant cause of death for children, even though it could be prevented if the resources were available.

During the 1970s, the world's largest public health project was launched by the World Bank and other aid agencies in Burkina to reclaim fertile river-edge land from “river blindness,” or onchocerciasis. This disease, caused by a parasite transmitted by black-fly bites, can lead to blindness after heavy exposure and has caused people to abandon villages and fields along the few year-round rivers. The “oncho” project has succeeded in reclaiming the land, but helicopter spraying must continue in order to suppress the black flies.

Major roads increasingly are being paved, which makes van and truck transport faster and less wearing on the imported vehicles. The single railroad, which runs from the sea at Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire through Bobo-Dioulasso to Ouagadougou, has been extended north to Kaya and eventually will reach another 200 km to valuable manganese deposits. Most individuals cannot afford a private car, but there is a widespread network of vans linking rural communities with cities and towns. There are international airports at Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso, with flights to other cities in West Africa and to Europe, particularly to France.

Bicycles and motorbikes are the most widely owned transport. Donkeys traditionally were used as pack animals and now are also used to draw carts to haul goods and firewood.

FAMILY LIFE

Most Burkinabe societies are patrilineally based; communities of men linked through their fathers live with the wives and children on land that in principle their ancestors cleared from uninhabited brush. In the past, married sons and younger brothers were likely to live with their father or older brother; there is a tendency to smaller households as more men have a wider range of economic options beyond the joint sharing of family farming. In the southwestern part of the country where Burkina, Ghana, and Côte d'Ivoire come together, ethnic groups transfer some rights and goods through the male line of kinship, and others through the female. That is, a man's tools, for example, might be inherited by his sons, but his cattle would go to his sister's sons.

Marriage in Burkina, as in much of Africa, is a matter of paramount concern to families because it is the means by which the entire family is perpetuated. The incest taboo means that women to bear children must come from outside the patrilineal family, so bringing in “strangers” is a necessity for the family. Marriages are arranged, therefore, and involve group meetings between both families. While there always have been ways for couples who wanted to marry to do so, by and large most marriages are not the result of individual emotions and desires, but are part of the overall family's way of making the connections needed to bear a next generation.

CLOTHING

Pre-colonial Burkina grew cotton, which was spun into thread by women and woven into strips of cloth by men; the cloth was exported by donkey caravan in large rolls to other parts of West Africa and was sewn into broader panels to make clothing in Burkina and elsewhere.

Modern Burkina grow increasing amounts of cotton, which is still an important export. It is made into printed cloth panels 1 by 2 m (about 3¼ by 6½ ft) in size in a Burkinabe factory. The factory-made and imported cloth is what most Burkinabe wear. Shoes also are manufactured in Burkina.

Traditionally, women wore a long cotton skirt wrapped around their waists; recently, tops have been added in rural as well as urban areas. Men wore cotton shirts and trousers, or Muslim-influenced embroidered robes. Sewing machines now are used for the intricate embroidery formerly done by hand. Urban residents tend to wear variations on an increasingly worldwide style of dress. Used American cut-off jeans have become the everyday working dress of farmers.

FOOD

Throughout Burkina, millet and sorghum are the staple foods. Porridge made from millet flour, called tô in West African French, is the main food. A cider-like beer brewed from sorghum is the main drink for all except Muslims and Protestant Christians, who do not drink alcohol.

Millet porridge is boiled to a loaf-like firmness, and pieces are broken off with the right hand, dipped in sauce, and eaten. The stew-like sauce is made from vegetables, leaves, and spices, and also may contain meat, which provides most of the flavor and vitamins to the meal. Meat, especially mutton and beef, is a luxury item not frequently eaten and even less often eaten by itself as a meal. Chickens and guinea fowl are the main sources of meat. Dried fish is traded down from the Niger River in Mali and Niger; as the lack of lakes and rivers in Burkina limits local fishing.

Corn (maize) is increasingly grown to be roasted and eaten, but it remains a secondary crop because it exhausts soil nutrients more quickly and requires more water than millet. Peanuts are grown and are eaten fresh, boiled, roasted, and ground into sauces. Rice was domesticated long ago in West Africa as well as in Asia and is grown in western Burkina. Rice tends to be a luxury food, served for special events like weddings. Even in rural areas, French-style bread is increasingly available and is, like leftover porridge, a breakfast food. High-quality wheat bread (for which flour must be imported) is eaten daily by everyone in the larger cities and towns.

EDUCATION

Except for Muslim Koranic schools and the three-month initiation schools that accompanied the circumcision of pre-adolescent boys, traditional Burkina education came from living with, watching, and assisting one's older family members and neighbors.

The French colonial government, anxious to save money, left education in the hands of Roman Catholic missionaries, who did not have many schools. Around 1970, only 7% of Burkinabe children of elementary school age attended school. That figure has increased, but access to education is far from universal. A 1995 estimate for the population over age 15 reported an overall literacy rate of 19.2%, 29.5% of men, and 9.2% of women.

Access to post-elementary education is competitive and limited by the smaller number of schools; there is one university, in Ouagadougou. There are a few job opportunities for those who do get a Western education.

CULTURAL HERITAGE

Besides the renowned tradition of wood carving, Burkinabe society has a rich heritage of folk tales and oral tradition. Their music consists of drums, flutes, and stringed instruments. In the western part of the country there are many players of the balophon, a xylophone-like instrument with dried gourds serving as resonators for the vibrating pieces. FESTPACO, the Ouagadougou film festival, is the leading film festival in all of Africa, and one of the major cultural events of any kind for the entire continent.

WORK

Burkina Faso only recently has begun to integrate more modern occupations into its farming tradition. While no one is without exposure to modern conveniences and new technologies, most people still live the sort of lives, doing the same sort of work, as their ancestors have done for centuries.

SPORTS

Soccer and bicycle racing are the major sports; no urban holiday is complete without a bicycle race. Beyond that, there is little in the way of sports. There is a national basketball team, but few are involved in the sport. Hunting is work more than sport, involving either food-seeking or control of agricultural pests.

ENTERTAINMENT AND RECREATION

Radio is the important means of linking people in Burkina to the outside world. Personal, as well as local, national, and world, news is broadcast. Television is minimally present; there is one station each in Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso, broadcasting only two hours per weekday and five hours on weekends to 12 sets for every 1,000 people in 2000.

Movies are important, although theaters are limited to the larger towns and cities. More importantly, relatively few movies are made in Africa, or in African languages, so that the movies people see usually are from foreign cultures and in foreign languages without dubbing into local languages. Films from India are widely screened in Africa. This is changing, however, and Burkinabe filmmakers are playing a major role. The main film festival in Africa is FESTPACO, the Festival Panafricain du Cinéma d'Ouagadougou. Burkinabe filmmakers like Gaston Kaboré and Idrissa Ouédraogo are making feature-length films that increasingly are seen in Europe and North America, but also, because they are in Moré, are fully accessible to at least half the Burkinabe population.

FOLK ART, CRAFTS, AND HOBBIES

Societies in Burkina, especially in the western part of the country, produce some of the most famous African art, which is carved wooden masks worn by ritual dancers who personify animal or other spirits. Patterned cloth is both woven and tie-dyed, and leather bags, cushions, and hats are widely known.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS

Burkina shares with other countries the problems that come with increasing urbanization and a greater output of students than there are jobs for them to fill. In relative terms, however, neither problem is as advanced as in many other African countries. The overall lack of economic infrastructure also means that Burkina is heavily influenced by economic decisions elsewhere. The country's money is the CFA (African Financial Community) Franc, the currency of most of formerly French West Africa. In 1994 the value of the CFA franc was cut in half relative to the French franc and other currencies. This had a major effect on those earning wages or salaries paid in CFA, but it affected as well the price everyone pays for increasingly necessary imported products like tires or radios or wheat flour for bread.

Burkina Faso was long noted in modern Africa as having more political freedom than most countries, even when (paradoxically) there was a military government. African governments face the task of meeting many demands with few resources, which can lead to an inability to accomplish much, in turn leading to a military seizure of power in the name of honesty and efficiency. Burkina had the distinction of two bloodless military coups, eventually returning power to civilian rule. When younger officers led by Th omas Sankara seized power in 1983, however, there were casualties from fighting and from executions of political rivals. Sankara himself made a strong effort to break the country from its dependence on foreign aid, but in 1987 was killed by his associates, who continue to rule the country. Burkina has multiparty elections, but they have been extensively boycotted by parties that argue that the government is manipulating the political system.

Alcohol and drugs are not major problems. While there is a brewery in the country, the cost of commercially produced alcohol is too expensive for most people to consume in quantity. The traditional millet beer is alcoholic, but it is an established part of both traditional society and household organization and is therefore a culturally controlled substance. Kola nuts, rich in caffeine and the basic ingredient in cola drinks, are widely chewed and are a routine gift to a host. Imported from Ghana to the south, they are the preferred stimulant for Muslims, who do not drink alcohol.

GENDER ISSUES

As in most African countries, traditional practices have kept women in a subordinate position. In the traditional setting, a woman is considered to be property that can be inherited upon the death of her husband. As such, traditional law does not recognize inheritance rights for women. Women suffer from frequent domestic sexual abuse and violence, and no specific laws have been put in place to protect women. Abusive husbands go free, since there are no legal channels to investigate or prosecute their actions. Another problem for girls is that they are married early in life. It is estimated that about 52% of women are married before the age of 18.

However, female excision (commonly known as female genital mutilation) was abolished in 1996. A committee known as The National Committee for the Fight Against Excision was also established in 1996 to work toward the complete eradication of this practice in Burkina Faso. Estimates indicate that up to 70% of girls and women had undergone the procedure before it was abolished in 1996. Since then, incidences of excision have declined by about 40% and more than 400 people have been sentenced for performing the practice.

Women are responsible for subsistence agriculture, and few are involved in the more lucrative private sector. In terms of their representation in parliament, women held only 11.7% of the seats and formed about 25% of the government workforce in 2008. Many of the women in government earn low wages, as they generally hold low paying jobs. In terms of human rights, excessive poverty has many Burkinabe living deplorable lives with no access to basic human rights. Child labor, child trafficking, violence, and discrimination against women and children are quite rampant in the country. People have also been arrested without charge or trial. Excessive force is often used against civilians with official impunity.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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———. The Mossi of Burkina Faso: Chiefs, Politicians, and Soldiers. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1989.

—revised by E. Kalipeni