Tem

The Tem, also called Temba or Kotokoli, are a Gur-speaking people of central Togo, grouped around the market town of Sokodé. Their traditions place their earlier home along the White Volta, from which Gurma chiefdoms drifted south and, in the 1600s, coalesced into the Tchaoudjo Kingdom around Sokodé, absorbing Hausa, Yoruba and Mandinka settlers over the centuries.

The Tem kept a hierarchical chiefly society and were nicknamed the lions; in the 1800s Chakosi merchants and the Egoma clan brought Islam, which then spread alongside older animist ritual rather than replacing it.