CHAPTER TWO: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND CURRENT CHALLENGES _____________________________________________________________________ Emergence of kingdoms 54. From the 12th to the 17th Century AD, we can see in some areas of Burkina Faso the emergence of state political systems from the social systems that prevailed. Arab sources (ta’rikh al-sûdan and ta’rikh al-fattash) reported the presence of a group of Moose conquerors during the 13th Century. However, a recent work traces the origins of the current Moose kingdoms to the 15th Century. 55. Legend has it that Ouédrago, the son of Princess Yenenga, who came from Ghana and who was an ancestor of the Moose, was considered a symbol. He reigned over the Tenkodogo, the oldest kingdom established in Burkina Faso. One of his descendants, Wubri, founded the kingdom of Ouagadougou. The Moose, who possessed a sound hierarchical, social organisation, settled in the whole of the central part of the country by subduing and assimilating the indigenous peoples. Their progression continued to the north, where the Kingdom of Yatenga was formed. 56. In the east, the Gulmanceba, whose mythical ancestor was Jaba Lompo, founded the Gulmanceba kingdoms between the 15th and 16th Century AD. 57. At the same time, groups of state builders and merchants settled down. Among them were the Fulsé, the Marka or Dafing, the Yarsés, the Bobo and the Dyula. 58. This was also the time when the fulbé principalities appeared in the north and the Sonrhaï and Maranse settled among the Moaga. Between the 18th and 19th Century AD, the last waves of pre-colonial migrations brought the LobiDagara, Gouin and Turka groups, who came from present-day Ghana, to the southwest area. In the west, Kong Wattara created the Kingdom of Gwiriko, followed by that of Kénédougou in the early 19th Century. These states existed only for a short while owing to the hostility of the population towards institutions and the centralisation of power. 59. Diversity in the origins and languages of the peoples who established themselves in the area until the end of the 19th Century made Burkina Faso a land of openness, dialogue, integration and cultural innovation. Moreover, lineage mutations, the trans-Saharan trade of cola nuts to the north and of salt to the south, exchanges among the cultures and the forest civilisations in the south and those in the Sahel and the desert in north, as well as exchanges between animist religious groups in the south and Muslim religious groups in the north, resulted in a new sociological and socio-cultural, but also state, product that shaped the historical origins of Burkina Faso. From colonial conquest to independence 60. The colonial history of Upper Volta cannot be separated from that of the countries that have suffered from European domination. However, some specific facets of its history make it somehow peculiar: it was created, 49