Burkina Faso's culture: masks, Mooré and a festival of African film

Which languages are spoken in Burkina Faso

About 69 languages are spoken in the country, some 60 of them indigenous, according to Wikipedia's country article. Mooré, the language of the Mossi, is the largest, spoken by about half the population and concentrated in the centre around Ouagadougou; Britannica describes Dyula as the language of commerce. In the west the Mande languages dominate, Dyula, Bobo, Samo and Marka among them. Fula is widespread in the north, Gourmanché in the east and Bissa in the south.

The census of 2006 counted who spoke what as a first language. French, then the sole official language, was the mother tongue of 1.3% of the population.

The law has moved towards that map. In December 2023 the government announced that national languages would become official, and a constitutional amendment promulgated in January 2024 made French a working language, alongside English. Britannica records that all of the country's many national languages now have official status; Wikipedia notes that the transitional charter of 2024 refers to "all national languages of Burkina Faso" without naming any of them. The record of the catalogue lists Mooré, Dioula and Bissa.

The country's own name is built from three of them. Burkina is Mooré for upright, Faso is Dyula for fatherland, literally the father's house, and the suffix of the demonym Burkinabe comes from Fula, where it means men or women. Dyula is also written in the N'Ko script.

Schools still teach mostly in French. Wikipedia's country article gives the Education Act as making schooling compulsory from 6 to 16 with French as the language of instruction, and Wikipedia's article on the capital records a bilingual programme, French with one local language, in Ouagadougou's schools since 1994. Adult literacy was 41.6% in 2023 in the World Bank series, up from 21.8% in 2003.

How belief is divided and counted

The census of 2019 recorded 63.8% of the population as Muslim, 26.3% as Christian, 20.1% Roman Catholic and 6.2% Protestant, and 9.0% as following traditional indigenous beliefs, with 0.2% following other religions and 0.7% none. Most Muslims are Sunni, and a significant number identify with the Tijaniyyah Sufi order.

The shares vary by region: in the Sud-Ouest, traditional religion is the largest group in the 2019 census, at 48.1% of the population.

The constitution declares the state secular and public education secular. Practice crosses the census lines. Britannica records that the Mossi venerate their ancestors, whose presence validates their claim to the land, and also pray to and propitiate nature deities, with Islam and Christianity minority faiths among them. Wikipedia's account of the Mossi kingdoms describes a mixed system in which the Mogho Naba appointed an imam to read the Qur'an to the court in exchange for recognition of the king's genealogical power.

Britannica describes the mosque of Bobo-Dioulasso, an Islamic centre, as a large clay building studded with wooden pikes. Mosques in the Sudanese style were added to the country's tentative list for the World Heritage List in 2026, with the historic centre of Bobo-Dioulasso, known as Sya, and the Maison du Peuple in Ouagadougou. Britannica places the Roman Catholic archbishopric in Ouagadougou.

Why masks are carved and danced

Masks and dancing are the two elements Wikipedia's culture article puts first. Masks are made for rites of sacrifice to gods and animal spirits, and dancing shows a village's wish for the spirits' blessing. Ritual ceremonies with masked dancing are old among many of the country's peoples, and they fed into the national theatre after independence.

Each people has its own forms. Britannica records that the Mossi carve antelope masks up to 7 feet, about 2.1 metres, tall, that the Bobo make butterfly masks and that the Lobi are known for their wood carvings. A Mossi mask of the 19th or 20th century in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a female figure called karan-wemba, was worn at the funeral of a woman elder. The Festival International des Masques et des Arts, FESTIMA, is held every two years in Dédougou.

The capital keeps the collections. Britannica lists a national museum and a crafts centre in Ouagadougou, and Wikipedia's article on the city adds a National Museum of Music that shows the country's instruments and a museum at Manega, 55 kilometres to the northwest, with instruments and Mossi rifles. Bobo-Dioulasso trades in bronze, iron and ivory work and traditionally made jewellery, Britannica notes, and Wikipedia's culture article records that much craft production is made for visitors. Masks are also regulated goods. The British government's travel advice records strict customs rules on taking cultural objects such as masks, religious materials and antiquities out of the country, and refers buyers to the Ministry of Culture.

How the royal court at Tiébélé is built

In the south, 172 kilometres from Ouagadougou and about 15 kilometres from the border with Ghana, the Kasena royal court of Tiébélé has stood at the foot of the hill of Tchébili since the 16th century. UNESCO inscribed it on the World Heritage List in 2024. It is built of earth, wood, cow dung and straw, and the plan follows the status of the people living in it.

The walls are painted, and UNESCO records that mural decoration is reserved to the women of the court, who work from a repertory of motifs both old and continually renewed, passed on by observation, ceremonies and competitions. The court also holds sacred places: the pourou, where the placentas of royal newborns are buried; a red fig tree at the entrance, with the sacred stones on which princes and dignitaries sit; the tomb of the founder; the nankongo, a court of law and place of parley; and a cemetery. The customary chief, the Pê, and the community manage it, and UNESCO lists the loss of maintenance and the use of new materials and chemicals among the threats.

What the Mossi court keeps of its ceremony

The Mogho Naba of Ouagadougou has had no sovereignty since the French conquest, but the court still meets. Wikipedia's article on the capital records that the Moro-Naba ceremony is performed every Friday by the king and his court at the palace, and Britannica describes Mossi society as ordered from village chiefs through divisional chiefs to the Mogho Naba, whose divisional chiefs in principle choose his successor, usually his eldest son. Wikipedia's account of the kingdoms describes two great festivals in the king's year, one for the genealogy of the royal line and one of sacrifices to the earth, and a court that had already made room for Islam by the time the French arrived.

The founding story of the kingdoms is told through a horse. Princess Yennenga fled her father on horseback, and her son was named Ouédraogo after the stallion. The name carries into modern life: FESPACO's top prize is the Étalon de Yennenga, the Stallion of Yennenga, and the national football team is called Les Étalons.

How Ouagadougou became a capital of African cinema

FESPACO, the Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou, began as a film week in 1969 with films from five African states, Upper Volta, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Niger and Senegal, as well as France and the Netherlands, and 23 films in all. It was recognised as an institution by decree on 7 January 1972 and has run every two years since, in odd years, opening at the national stadium, the Stade du 4-Août. Only films by African filmmakers produced chiefly in Africa can compete. The festival's own site announces the 30th edition for 2027.

The prize list carries the country's history. The Étalon d'or de Yennenga goes to the film that best shows "Africa's realities", and a Silver and Bronze Stallion have been awarded since 2005. The Pan African Federation of Filmmakers, prepared at the same meeting as the festival and formally founded in 1970, kept its headquarters in Ouagadougou, rescued in 1983 by Sankara's government, even after its secretariat moved to South Africa in 2006. Gaston Kaboré, Idrissa Ouedraogo and Dani Kouyaté are among the directors Wikipedia names. After the coup of September 2022 the French Institute was ransacked in demonstrations, and the festival lost two screening rooms in the city centre.

Ouagadougou holds the other national gatherings too. The International Art and Craft Fair, SIAO, has been held every two years since 1988, in even years, and the city also hosts a Pan-African music festival and an international theatre and puppetry festival. The National Culture Week, held every two years, takes place in Bobo-Dioulasso. At Laongo, outside the capital, artists invited from around the world carve the exposed granite at a symposium held every two years.

How writers moved from the spoken word to print

Literature rests on oral tradition. In 1934, under French rule, Dim-Dolobsom Ouedraogo published Maximes, pensées et devinettes mossi, a record of Mossi sayings and riddles. Writers of the 1960s such as Nazi Boni and Roger Nikiema still drew on the oral forms, more playwrights were published from the same decade, and far more writers have appeared in print since the 1970s. Slam poetry has grown, in part through the work of Malika Ouattara, who has used it on blood donation, albinism and COVID-19.

Theatre mixes the mask performances of the villages with French stage forms brought in under colonial rule, and after independence a forum theatre grew up to educate and entertain rural audiences. Music draws on the folk traditions of about 60 ethnic groups; popular music is mostly in French. The state broadcaster, Radio Télévision du Burkina, carries radio and television, beside private stations for sport, music, culture and religion.

What Burkinabe cooks put on the table

Burkinabe cooking rests on sorghum, millet, rice, maize, peanuts, potatoes, beans, yams and okra, and the commonest animal proteins are chicken, eggs and freshwater fish, according to Wikipedia's country article. The drinks are distinctive: zoom-kom, a milky water-and-cereal drink often served with ice and described as the national drink; dolo, fermented millet beer in the rural areas; and banji, palm wine. In hard years zamnè, a legume native to the country, is served as a main dish or in a sauce.

Who carries the country's name in sport

Football is played professionally and informally in towns and villages across the country. Burkina Faso hosted the Africa Cup of Nations in 1998, building the Omnisport Stadium in Bobo-Dioulasso for it, and reached the final of the 2013 tournament in South Africa, losing 1 to 0 to Nigeria. Its first Olympic medal came at the 2020 Summer Olympics, a bronze for Hugues Fabrice Zango in the triple jump, and Zango won the world title in the same event in 2023. Basketball has a following among men and women alike, and the men's team qualified for the AfroBasket championship in 2013. The football team has never qualified for a FIFA World Cup. Cricket is newer, with a ten-club league run by Cricket Burkina Faso.