StapleGhana
Banku
Fermented maize and cassava dough cooked to a smooth sour ball, eaten with okro stew or grilled tilapia and pepper. Sour, dense and shaped by hand into a rounded mound.
Serves 4 · 45 minutes, plus 3 days fermenting
Mamprusi
The senior of the Mole-Dagbani kingdoms of northern Ghana, whose Nayiri at Nalerigu claims descent from the founder from whom the Dagomba and Mossi kings also trace, and whose succession dispute has kept Bawku under curfew for two decades.
Identity
Population: Estimated 300,000 to 500,000 across Ghana and Burkina Faso
Location: The North East Region of Ghana around Nalerigu, Gambaga and Walewale, with communities in Bawku and southern Burkina Faso
Language: Mampruli
Language family: Niger-Congo → Gur → Mabia (Oti-Volta)
Traditional governance: The Nayiri at Nalerigu, senior among the Mole-Dagbani rulers, with divisional chiefs; Ghanaian regional administration.
Clans, Sections & Sub-groups (3)
Most African peoples are federations of named sub-groups (clans, sections, chiefdoms or sub-tribes), each with its own dialect, territory and traditions.
Mamprusi of Nalerigu
The royal capital.
Mamprusi of Gambaga
The old administrative centre and the site of the witch camp.
Mamprusi of Bawku
The eastern communities at the centre of the chieftaincy dispute.
Culture
Clothing: The smock (batakari) in narrow-strip weave; the Nayiri's regalia of gowns, hats and staffs; contemporary dress otherwise.
Food: Millet and sorghum as tuo zaafi with dawadawa and baobab-leaf soups, groundnuts, guinea fowl, rice, and pito where Islam has not displaced it.
Ceremonies: The Nayiri's installation and court; Damba, the festival marking the Prophet's birth, celebrated with drumming and horse display; funerals; Islamic calendar observances.
Marriage customs: Patrilineal with bridewealth in cattle and goods; Islamic contract in most households; royal marriages historically bound the divisions.
Initiation rites: Circumcision in Islamic form; the royal drummers' (lunsi) training, which transmits the kingdom's history, is the most demanding transmitted skill.
Food & Recipes
Every dish the Atlas publishes for Ghana and Burkina Faso, at national rather than community level — 17 in all: the staple a household eats daily, the dish the country names as its own, street food, what is cooked for a wedding or Eid, regional specialities and a drink. Quantities and method are given for every one, so these are recipes rather than descriptions, and each has a photograph from Wikimedia Commons. The Food page carries the whole continent, searchable by country and by ingredient.
Ghana
9 dishes
StapleGhana
Tuo Zaafi
also TZ, Sagim
Maize and cassava flour cooked into a soft swallow, the staple of northern Ghana, eaten with an okra or ayoyo soup that has to be slippery enough to swallow it.
Serves 6 · 40 minutes
National dishGhana
Ghanaian Jollof
Rice cooked in a reduced tomato and pepper base, made in Ghana with aromatic rice and a lighter hand on the purée. The rivalry with Nigeria over this dish is conducted with total seriousness.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes
National dishGhana
Kenkey
also Kormi, Dokono
Fermented maize dough half-cooked, wrapped in maize husks and boiled into dense sour balls. The Ga and Fante staple, eaten with fried fish and pepper sauce.
Serves 6 · 2 hours, plus 3 days fermenting
Street foodGhana
Waakye
Rice and beans cooked with dried sorghum leaves, which turn it a deep reddish brown, sold from before dawn with shito, gari, spaghetti and boiled egg piled on.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes, plus overnight soaking
Street foodGhana
Kelewele
also Spiced fried plantain
Ripe plantain cubed, tossed in ginger, chilli and spice and deep-fried, sold from pans on Accra street corners after dark and eaten with roasted peanuts.
Serves 4 · 30 minutes
Festival & feastGhana
Fufu with Light Soup
Pounded cassava and plantain with a clear peppery soup of goat or fish. Sunday food, and the dish most Ghanaians name when asked what they would want if they were far from home.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes
Regional specialityGhana
Red Red
Black-eyed peas stewed in palm oil with tomato, served with fried ripe plantain and gari. Named twice for red: the palm oil and the tomato.
Serves 6 · 1 hour, plus overnight soaking
Drink & sweetGhana
Sobolo
Hibiscus infused with pineapple skin, ginger and cloves, sold chilled in bottles at every junction in Accra. Ghana's version leans heavily on the ginger.
Serves 8 · 30 minutes, plus chilling
Burkina Faso
8 dishes
StapleBurkina Faso
Tô
also Saghbo
Stiff millet or sorghum porridge, the daily food of most of the country, torn off in lumps and dipped in sauce. Eaten with the right hand from a shared bowl.
Serves 6 · 40 minutes
National dishBurkina Faso
Riz Gras
Rice cooked in a rich tomato and meat broth until it absorbs everything, the West African one-pot in its Burkinabè form. The name means fat rice and is not an exaggeration.
Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes
Street foodBurkina Faso
Brochettes
Skewers of beef or mutton grilled over charcoal and rolled in a peppery groundnut spice mix, sold from braziers on every street corner in Ouagadougou after dark.
Serves Makes 12 · 30 minutes, plus 2 hours marinating
Street foodBurkina Faso
Gonré
also Bean cake, Gonre
Black-eyed beans ground with onion and chilli, wrapped in leaf and steamed into a firm savoury cake. Burkina Faso's breakfast and market food.
Serves 8 · 1 hour 30 minutes, plus overnight soaking
Festival & feastBurkina Faso
Poulet Bicyclette
Free-range chicken, so called because it has spent its life running about, marinated and grilled whole over charcoal. Served flattened with onion sauce for guests and celebrations.
Serves 4 · 1 hour 30 minutes, plus 4 hours marinating
Festival & feastBurkina Faso
Zamnè
also Acacia seeds, Zaamné
The small green seeds of a wild acacia, boiled long and cooked with beef and onion. A Burkinabè delicacy that is expensive, laborious and served to people you want to impress.
Serves 6 · 3 hours
Regional specialityBurkina Faso
Babenda
Wild leaves, rice and soumbala cooked together into a dark green one-pot, from the Mossi plateau. Soumbala is fermented néré seed and gives the dish its powerful savoury depth.
Serves 6 · 1 hour
Drink & sweetBurkina Faso
Dolo
also Millet beer, Chapalo
Sorghum beer brewed by women and sold in courtyards marked with an upturned calabash on a pole. It is drunk within a day or two, still fermenting, from a shared gourd.
Serves Makes about 5 litres · 4 days
Stories & Oral Literature
The Gambaga Escarpment and the DynastyPolitical history
Mamprugu, Dagbon and the Mossi kingdoms all trace their ruling dynasties to a common founder, Na Gbewaa, whose sons and grandsons are said to have established the separate states; Mamprugu claims seniority as the line of the eldest. The Nayiri's court at Nalerigu, the drummed genealogies of the lunsi, and the succession protocols are the institutional record of that claim, and precedence among the Mole-Dagbani rulers is still argued in exactly those terms.
BawkuContemporary conflict
The Bawku chieftaincy dispute, between Mamprusi and Kusasi claims to the paramountcy of a town at the Ghana-Burkina-Togo junction, dates to colonial-era decisions and a 1957 government ruling, and has produced recurrent violence since. Escalation from 2021 has killed hundreds, closed schools, imposed prolonged curfews and drawn in weapons from the Sahel. It is the most intractable chieftaincy conflict in Ghana, and both communities' cases rest on documents and rulings from the 1930s to the 1950s.
The Gambaga CampContemporary social issue
Gambaga hosts one of northern Ghana's alleged-witch camps, where women accused of witchcraft in their home villages have lived under the Gambarrana's protection for generations — several hundred at a time, some for decades. The camps are simultaneously a refuge from lynching and a form of banishment. Ghanaian governments have announced closures repeatedly; the practical obstacle is that closing a camp without changing the belief sends the women back to the villages that drove them out.
Proverbs
“The drum remembers the names the chief forgets.”
On the lunsi and the drummed genealogies.
“The eldest brother's house is not the largest, but it is first.”
On Mamprugu's claim to seniority.
“A quarrel over a stool outlives everyone who sat on it.”
On chieftaincy disputes.
Mythology & Spiritual Beliefs
Creation: Naawuni as the high god, understood within Islam; the earth addressed through earth priests in the older layer; ancestral kings honoured at the royal graves.
Beliefs: Islam, long established at the court and general in the population; Damba and the Islamic calendar; earth-shrine practice continuing at village level; drummed royal history as a quasi-sacred transmission.
Ancestors: The Nayiri's ancestors are recited by the lunsi drummers at every major occasion; the genealogy is the kingdom's constitution as well as its history.
Gods, Goddesses & Spirits
Naawuni
The high god, identified with God in Islamic usage
The earth
Addressed through earth priests for fertility and boundaries
Royal ancestors
Honoured at the royal graves and named in the drummed genealogies
Architecture
Traditional settlements: Compounds of round and rectangular huts within walls on the escarpment and the plains; Nalerigu with the Nayiri's palace and the old defensive wall.
Building techniques: Mud and pole construction with conical thatch and flat roofs; the Nalerigu wall, a substantial earthwork attributed to Naa Jaringa; narrow-strip weaving; drum making.
Village layout: Compounds around a household head's hut with granaries and stock; the palace and the market at Nalerigu's centre, with the wall around the old town.
Artifacts
Nalerigu wall
Fortification
Substantial earthwork around the old royal town, attributed to Naa Jaringa.
Lunsi hourglass drums
Instrument
Tension drums on which the kingdom's genealogies and history are recited.
Nayiri's regalia
Regalia
Gowns, hats and staffs of the senior Mole-Dagbani throne.
Batakari smock
Textile
Narrow-strip woven and sewn smock, the dress of northern Ghana.
Historical Timeline
1300s–1400s
The Mole-Dagbani dynasties are founded; Mamprugu claims the senior line from Na Gbewaa.
1600s–1800s
Islam is established at the court; Damba is adopted; the kingdom trades with Hausa and Mossi networks.
1900s–1957
British indirect rule; colonial rulings on the Bawku paramountcy set the terms of the later dispute.
1957–present
Recurrent Bawku conflict; a severe escalation from 2021 kills hundreds and imposes prolonged curfews.
1990s–present
The Gambaga camp becomes a focus of Ghanaian and international campaigning on witchcraft accusation.
Sources & Further Reading
Open sources
- Ghana Statistical Service — population and housing censusGovernment of Ghana
- ActionAid Ghana — alleged witches' camps reportingActionAid
Premium & scholarly sources
- Lund, Local Politics and the Dynamics of Property in Africa (Bawku chapters)Cambridge University Press