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.