All of them together are sometimes described as вЂњthe Mossi empire,вЂќ but there has never been a time when all the Mossi were unified under one ruler. The Mossi were organized into three kingdoms, Tenkodogo, Wagadugu, and Yatenga, along with a number of buffer states around their edges. Mossi men also traveled widely as traders and as soldiers in the French army. The demand for labor on the mainly African-owned coffee and cocoa farms in the coastal forest in those countries coincided with the dry season in the savanna of Burkina Faso, so Mossi men could migrate south between growing seasons and bring money back to their families. As little was grown or mined in Mossi country that the French wanted to buy, many Mossi were forced to migrate to the Ivory Coast (then a French colony) and the neighboring British Gold Coast (now Ghana) to earn money there. By making the Mossi pay in French money, the colonial government required them to grow, dig, make, or do something the French were willing to pay for. Traditional Mossi taxes to chiefs and kings had been paid in goods, and cowrie shells had served as money. In less than 10 years after the first conquest, the French demanded that the Mossi pay taxes in French francs. Like the other colonial powers, the French wanted their colonies to generate money for their European homeland. Mossi migration increased notably after the French conquest of the Mossi in 1896вЂ“97 the Mossi were one of the last peoples in Africa to be brought under colonial rule. From the beginning, the Mossi people moved, and their idea of society included people moving in, out, and around.

The Mossi's story of their origins involves the conquest of native farming peoples by immigrant cavalry soldiers from the northeast, toward what is now northern Nigeria. Mossi culture nonetheless shows Muslim influences. The three Mossi kingdoms were known for their resistance to Islam in a region where all other kingdoms and empires were Muslim, at least in their ruling elites, after about the 10th century. The Mossi occupied the interior lands within the вЂњboucle de NigerвЂќ (вЂњgreat loop of the Niger RiverвЂќ) and thus controlled trade between the empires along the great Niger River and the forest kingdoms to their south. Because of extensive migration to more prosperous neighboring countries, Mossi also are the second-largest ethnic group in CГґte d'Ivoire ( Ivory Coast). The Mossi make up the largest ethnic group in Burkina Faso. RELIGION: traditional religion (3 main components: creator, fertility spirits, ancestors) POPULATION: 5 to 6 million in Burkina Faso, 1.2 million in CГґte d'Ivoire

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