Boussouma

Boussouma was one of the Mossi kingdoms of the upper Volta, a country of hills and grassland, and its ruler, the Naaba, is counted among the descendants of Yennenga's grandsons together with the kings of Tenkodogo, Fada N'gourma and Yatenga. The Mossi lived by farming and herding and fought as horsemen, and their kings kept to the old ancestral cult.

The Songhai chronicles speak of Mossi raids on Timbuktu and Walata in the fifteenth century, though historians doubt that these Mossi were the same people. In 1497 Askia Muhammad I proclaimed a holy war against the Mossi kingdoms. The Mossi were defeated but refused to accept Islam, and when Moroccan guns broke the Songhai in 1591 they stood independent again. In the eighteenth century the economic and military power of the Mossi kingdoms grew, trade ran to the Fulani lands and to Mali, and the Mossi courts kept their traditional religion while the jihad states of Massina and Sokoto rose around them.