In Century XV, mossi settled in the central area formed by the river basin of the white Volta. A group of horsemen arrived from the north of present Ghana put under the rural societies of the place and created the first kingdom mossi of Tenkodogo, whose head was Uedraogo. Their descendants founded the kingdom of Fada N´Gurma and other two more important, the one of Yatenga and the one of Ouadadougou, that exerted a religious and political supremacy on the other kingdoms. At the end of century XIX seventeen kingdoms coexisted. The political system of mossi is centralist and jeraquizada and at the top it is the Mogho Naba. Account with a 25% of Muslims as opposed to a 70% of animistics and a 5% of Christians.
The native populations and the invaders married to each other, although the political heads always chose themselves between the lineages of Nakomse, descendants of the horsemen aristocrats, islamizados in century XVII. The religious head esceogía between tengabibisi, men descending currents of the native ones. Lps tengabibisi subdivided in nyonyose or descendants of the farmers, blacksmiths (saaba) and the clans that used, among others, the important mask sukwaba. The society mossi is really heterogenous since the native ones assimilated included dogones to the north, gurmantches to the east and nunumas and kurumas to the southwest, grouped under the name tengabibisi or “children of the Earth”. Before the proximity of the cavalry nakomse, a part of dogón fled towards the ancantilados ones of Bandiagara. Some masks mossi and dogón are of a very similar style.
The domestic unit of mossi is buudu or clan. Several buudu form sakse or district submissive the authority of kasma or dean of the lineage, or the one of a head naaba, also he submissive directly or indirectly the king. The houses are very dispersed. From century principles, one notices that the family was “descomunalizada” due to the custom on which the first-born started off to live independently on the father as soon as took place the circuncisión. Also, the young wife did not have any status until the birth of her first son, who granted the right to him to go to visit his parents. She did not raise to her children, who were trusted the spouses of more age. Like compensation, to the death of the father, the son recovered his spouses and their fields. Cadacasa had segre, part of the ancestor reincarnated in the family head and to whom they had to offerings and sacrifices to him.
The blacksmiths-escultores formed a chaste one aside, lived in separated districts and they only married with members of its chaste one. Their neighbors feared and participated to them in active form in the ritual. They made jewels, sculptures of metal or wood, statues or masks.
The agriculturists, “Earth children”, descendants of the native ones, still use great pertenencientes masks to the family or the clan. Previously those masks were the address of esptíritu of the ancestors and its “eyes”, but also they could represent totémico spirit of the clan. Each family had an own myth that explained the origin of the mask. Generally, a catastrophe induced a sacred animal, or even to a God, to donate a mask to an ancestor whose power allowed to recover the order in the clan. Also to its death, the mask became the material receiver of its soul. Mossi thought that the sacred animals of the clan maintained one narrow relation with the souls of deads and everything what happened to them announced the coming events. The death of an animal, for example, augured the one of a member of a clan. These masks reappeared in several occasions throughout the year: they in this way escorted to the dead helping him to arrive at the world from beyond. Months later were present in the funerales to guard by the correct fulfillment of the ritual. Also they presided over the sacrifices of beginning of the season of rains destined to assure to the community a good harvest mijo and a good harvest wild fruits. Before first cosehca they watched that respect to planted grains kept corresponding to the period from hunger. Between these different “exits”, the masks remained in the familiar altar, where they received the requests and sacrifices of the members of the family that needed it thus and allowed the communication with the ancestors.
C. Roy (1987) discovers in the north the masks made through great similar narrow tables to works of dogón. In the east, the masks have mirrors instead of eyes and are covered with red grains. They represent the spirits of the forest and belong to individual families. In the southwest, mossi of origin nunuma or winiama carves animal masks that they decorate with geometric reasons in red, black and white. Some carved figures of small size comprised of the great masks and to which they served soon as closing, seeing itself trimmed and isolated. In effect, the estatuaria mossi is little.
The agriculturists maintained the traditions using the magic and invoking to the forces of the spirits against the conquering power of the horsemen. The society wango celebrated with a great straight mask that derived from sirige of dogón, a decorated frontal table with holes that a made oval face carried.
The aristocracy also used statues, aunqeu conviertiera to the Islam as of century XVII. Mainly feminine, these statues related to the power of the heads commemorated the ancestors and they were conserved inside the cabin of the wife of more age.
They only left in the funerales of the sovereign and the annual sacrifice in which the primicias of the harvest are ofrendaban. At the time of the reigns, a escultor worked exclusively for one or two heads.
In addition to these statues, the denominated blacksmiths carved biiga, habitually covered of leather and adorned with shells and to per them.
The art of mossi tends to a certain esquematismo that is not in its neighbors.