Yennenga, Warrior Princess and Mother of the Mossi

Yennenga is the founding ancestress of the Mossi people of Burkina Faso. Dynastic oral tradition, recorded by court historians such as the Larhallé Naba Yamba Tiendrébéogo and analyzed by Elliott Skinner and Michel Izard, remembers her as the daughter of Nedega (Na Gbewa in some versions), ruler of the Dagomba or Mamprusi at Gambaga in present-day northern Ghana. A superb horsewoman who led her father's cavalry, she was forbidden to marry; she fled northward when her stallion bolted, was sheltered by the solitary elephant hunter Rialé, and bore him a son named Ouédraogo ('stallion') in memory of the horse. Through Ouédraogo she is the apical ancestress of every Mossi royal lineage, and her memory remains central to Burkinabè national identity: the golden stallion trophy of the FESPACO film festival, the Étalon de Yennenga, bears her name.

Children

• Ouédraogo, Progenitor of the Mossi Kingdoms

Domains

• war
• horsemanship
• dynastic motherhood

Powers

• to fight and lead warriors as a mounted cavalry commander

Relations

• spouse: Rialé the Hunter
• mother of: Ouédraogo, Progenitor of the Mossi Kingdoms

Sources

• Elliott P. Skinner, The Mossi of the Upper Volta: The Political Development of a Sudanese People, Stanford University Press, 1964
• Michel Izard, Moogo: L'émergence d'un espace étatique ouest-africain au XVIe siècle, Karthala, 2003
• Yamba Tiendrébéogo (Larhallé Naba), Histoire et coutumes royales des Mossi de Ouagadougou, rédaction de Robert Pageard, Ouagadougou, 1964