Tenkodogo

Tenkodogo is remembered as the first Mossi kingdom. Tradition tells of the princess Yennenga, who fled her father Naa Gbewaa and married the Mande elephant hunter Rialé. Their son Ouédraogo received four horses and fifty cows from his grandfather at Gambaga, gathered horsemen, and conquered the local people. He founded Tenkodogo and married Pouiriketa, who bore him three sons. The eldest, Diaba Lompo, founded Fada N'gourma, and the second, Rawa, ruled Zondoma, while the third, Zoungrana, succeeded his father at Tenkodogo.

Zoungrana's son Oubri, who ruled about 1050 to 1090, is regarded as the founder of the Ouagadougou dynasty, and after him the kings of Ouagadougou were the leading line among the Mossi. Tenkodogo kept its own independent ruler. Oral tradition places Yennenga anywhere between the eleventh and the fifteenth centuries, but the Mossi kingdoms themselves took shape only between the fifteenth and sixteenth.