Bawku

Bawku lies in the savanna of the far northeast of present-day Ghana, close to the Burkina Faso border, where the Mossi and Mamprusi lands of the north meet the plains farmed by Kusasi communities. The ground is flat and open, with farmland, grazing and scattered trees. Its frontier position made it a meeting point for roads, markets and families whose ties cross what is now an international line, and livestock and grain moved along the tracks that link the Volta basin with the Sahel.

A few kilometres away in Pusiga stands the shrine regarded as the tomb of Naa Gbewaa, ancestral founder honoured in Mamprusi, Dagomba and Nanumba traditions. The shrine is thought to have been built in the fourteenth century and remains a place of spiritual reverence, giving the broader locality a significance that reaches beyond any political boundary.