Culture of Burkina Faso
Encyclopedia
The culture of Burkina Faso in West Africa
is also called the Burkinabé culture.
Two key elements of culture in Burkina Faso
(a country once known as Upper Volta
) are its indigenous masks and dancing. The masks used in this region of the western Sahel
are made for rite
s of sacrifice
to gods and animal spirits in the villages. Native dance, on the other hand, is employed to demonstrate the villagers' desire for blessings by the spirits......
, which remains important. In 1934, during French
occupation, Dim-Dolobsom Ouedraogo published his Maximes, pensées et devinettes mossi (Maximes, Thoughts and Riddles of the Mossi), a record of the oral history of the Mossi people. The oral tradition continued to have an influence on Burkinabé writers in the post-independence Burkina Faso of the 1960s, such as Nazi Boni
and Roger Nikiema. The 1960s saw a growth in the number of playwright
s being published. Since the 1970s, literature has developed in Burkina Faso with many more writers being published.
of Burkina Faso combines traditional Burkinabé performance with the colonial
influences and post-colonial efforts to educate rural people to produce a distinctive national theatre. Traditional ritual ceremonies of the many ethnic groups in Burkina Faso have long involved dancing with masks. Western-style theatre became common during colonial times, heavily influenced by French theatre. With independence came a new style of theatre inspired by forum theatre
aimed at educating and entertaining Burkina Faso's rural people.
of Burkina Faso, typically of west Africa
n cuisine, is based around staple food
s of sorghum
, millet
, rice
, maize
, peanut
s, potato
es, bean
s, yam
s and okra
.
The Popular Theatre in Ouagadougou
, the capital of Burkina Faso
, is a center of social and cultural events for the country. Ouagadougou, is a major hub of activity for those involved in African cinema
, and hosts a Pan-African film festival
every year called FESPACO, the Pan-African film and television Festival
of Ouagadougou, which is a world-renowned affair. Culture and art are further displayed at Laongo, an area of exposed granites where artists from the entire world are invited to sculpt on the rock. Idrissa Ouedraogo
, probably the most commercially successful African director, is from Burkina Faso.
, and that the majority of this group belong to the Sunni branch, while remaining minorities adhere to the Shi'a branch, and significant numbers of Sunni Muslims identify with the Tijaniyah Sufi, or Salafi
traditions. The Government also estimated that 24 percent of the population maintains traditional indigenous beliefs
, 17 percent practices Roman Catholicism, and 3 percent are members of various Protestant denominations.
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
is also called the Burkinabé culture.
Two key elements of culture in Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso – also known by its short-form name Burkina – is a landlocked country in west Africa. It is surrounded by six countries: Mali to the north, Niger to the east, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Côte d'Ivoire to the southwest.Its size is with an estimated...
(a country once known as Upper Volta
Republic of Upper Volta
The Republic of Upper Volta was established on December 11, 1958, as a self-governing colony within the French Community. Before attaining autonomy it had been French Upper Volta and part of the French Union. On August 5, 1960 it attained full independence from France.Thomas Sankara came to power...
) are its indigenous masks and dancing. The masks used in this region of the western Sahel
Sahel
The Sahel is the ecoclimatic and biogeographic zone of transition between the Sahara desert in the North and the Sudanian Savannas in the south.It stretches across the North African continent between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea....
are made for rite
Rite
A rite is an established, ceremonious, usually religious act. Rites in this sense fall into three major categories:* rites of passage, generally changing an individual's social status, such as marriage, baptism, or graduation....
s of sacrifice
Sacrifice
Sacrifice is the offering of food, objects or the lives of animals or people to God or the gods as an act of propitiation or worship.While sacrifice often implies ritual killing, the term offering can be used for bloodless sacrifices of cereal food or artifacts...
to gods and animal spirits in the villages. Native dance, on the other hand, is employed to demonstrate the villagers' desire for blessings by the spirits......
Literature
Literature in Burkina Faso is based on the oral traditionOral tradition
Oral tradition and oral lore is cultural material and traditions transmitted orally from one generation to another. The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants...
, which remains important. In 1934, during French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
occupation, Dim-Dolobsom Ouedraogo published his Maximes, pensées et devinettes mossi (Maximes, Thoughts and Riddles of the Mossi), a record of the oral history of the Mossi people. The oral tradition continued to have an influence on Burkinabé writers in the post-independence Burkina Faso of the 1960s, such as Nazi Boni
Nazi Boni
Nazi Boni was a politician from Upper Volta . In 1951 Boni was elected to the French National Assembly on behalf of the Voltaic Union. In 1955 Boni founded the African Popular Movement after a split from the UV...
and Roger Nikiema. The 1960s saw a growth in the number of playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
s being published. Since the 1970s, literature has developed in Burkina Faso with many more writers being published.
Theatre
TheatreTheatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
of Burkina Faso combines traditional Burkinabé performance with the colonial
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
influences and post-colonial efforts to educate rural people to produce a distinctive national theatre. Traditional ritual ceremonies of the many ethnic groups in Burkina Faso have long involved dancing with masks. Western-style theatre became common during colonial times, heavily influenced by French theatre. With independence came a new style of theatre inspired by forum theatre
Theatre of the Oppressed
The Theatre of the Oppressed describes a range of theatrical forms that the Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal first elaborated in the 1960s, initially in Brazil and later in Europe. Boal was influenced by the work of the educator and theorist Paulo Freire. Boal's techniques use theatre as...
aimed at educating and entertaining Burkina Faso's rural people.
Cuisine
CuisineCuisine
Cuisine is a characteristic style of cooking practices and traditions, often associated with a specific culture. Cuisines are often named after the geographic areas or regions that they originate from...
of Burkina Faso, typically of west Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
n cuisine, is based around staple food
Staple food
A staple food is one that is eaten regularly and in such quantities that it constitutes a dominant portion of a diet, and that supplies a high proportion of energy and nutrient needs. Most people live on a diet based on one or more staples...
s of sorghum
Sorghum
Sorghum is a genus of numerous species of grasses, one of which is raised for grain and many of which are used as fodder plants either cultivated or as part of pasture. The plants are cultivated in warmer climates worldwide. Species are native to tropical and subtropical regions of all continents...
, millet
Millet
The millets are a group of small-seeded species of cereal crops or grains, widely grown around the world for food and fodder. They do not form a taxonomic group, but rather a functional or agronomic one. Their essential similarities are that they are small-seeded grasses grown in difficult...
, rice
Rice
Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...
, maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
, peanut
Peanut
The peanut, or groundnut , is a species in the legume or "bean" family , so it is not a nut. The peanut was probably first cultivated in the valleys of Peru. It is an annual herbaceous plant growing tall...
s, potato
Potato
The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...
es, bean
Bean
Bean is a common name for large plant seeds of several genera of the family Fabaceae used for human food or animal feed....
s, yam
Yam (vegetable)
Yam is the common name for some species in the genus Dioscorea . These are perennial herbaceous vines cultivated for the consumption of their starchy tubers in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania...
s and okra
Okra
Okra is a flowering plant in the mallow family. It is valued for its edible green seed pods. The geographical origin of okra is disputed, with supporters of South Asian, Ethiopian and West African origins...
.
Art and cinema
Ouagadougou
Ouagadougou is the capital of Burkina Faso and the administrative, communications, cultural and economic center of the nation. It is also the country's largest city, with a population of 1,475,223 . The city's name is often shortened to Ouaga. The inhabitants are called ouagalais...
, the capital of Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso – also known by its short-form name Burkina – is a landlocked country in west Africa. It is surrounded by six countries: Mali to the north, Niger to the east, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Côte d'Ivoire to the southwest.Its size is with an estimated...
, is a center of social and cultural events for the country. Ouagadougou, is a major hub of activity for those involved in African cinema
African cinema
The term African cinema refers to the film production in Africa, following formal independence. Some of the countries in North Africa developed a national film industry much earlier and are related to West Asian cinema...
, and hosts a Pan-African film festival
Film festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...
every year called FESPACO, the Pan-African film and television Festival
Festival
A festival or gala is an event, usually and ordinarily staged by a local community, which centers on and celebrates some unique aspect of that community and the Festival....
of Ouagadougou, which is a world-renowned affair. Culture and art are further displayed at Laongo, an area of exposed granites where artists from the entire world are invited to sculpt on the rock. Idrissa Ouedraogo
Idrissa Ouedraogo
Idrissa Ouedraogo is a film director from Burkina Faso. He is best known for his films Yaaba and Tilaï.-Biography:...
, probably the most commercially successful African director, is from Burkina Faso.
Religion
While exact statistics on religion in Burkina Faso are not available and vary widely, the Government of Burkina Faso estimated in its most recent census (1996) that approximately 60 percent of the population practice IslamIslam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, and that the majority of this group belong to the Sunni branch, while remaining minorities adhere to the Shi'a branch, and significant numbers of Sunni Muslims identify with the Tijaniyah Sufi, or Salafi
Salafi
A Salafi come from Sunni Islam is a follower of an Islamic movement, Salafiyyah, that is supposed to take the Salaf who lived during the patristic period of early Islam as model examples...
traditions. The Government also estimated that 24 percent of the population maintains traditional indigenous beliefs
African Traditional Religion
The traditional religions indigenous to Africa have, for most of their existence, been orally rather than scripturally transmitted. They are generally associated with animism. Most have ethno-based creations stories...
, 17 percent practices Roman Catholicism, and 3 percent are members of various Protestant denominations.
Holidays
| Date | English Name |
|---|---|
| January 1 | New Year's Day New Year's Day New Year's Day is observed on January 1, the first day of the year on the modern Gregorian calendar as well as the Julian calendar used in ancient Rome... |
| January 3 | Anniversary of the 1966 Coup d'État |
| March 8 | International Women's Day International Women's Day International Women's Day , originally called International Working Women’s Day, is marked on March 8 every year. In different regions the focus of the celebrations ranges from general celebration of respect, appreciation and love towards women to a celebration for women's economic, political and... |
| May 1 | Labour Day Labour Day Labour Day or Labor Day is an annual holiday to celebrate the economic and social achievements of workers. Labour Day has its origins in the labour union movement, specifically the eight-hour day movement, which advocated eight hours for work, eight hours for recreation, and eight hours for... |
| August 4 | Revolution Day |
| August 5 | Independence Day Independence Day An Independence Day is an annual event commemorating the anniversary of a nation's assumption of independent statehood, usually after ceasing to be a colony or part of another nation or state, and more rarely after the end of a military occupation... |
| August 15 | Assumption Assumption of Mary According to the belief of Christians of the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and parts of the Anglican Communion and Continuing Anglicanism, the Assumption of Mary was the bodily taking up of the Virgin Mary into Heaven at the end of her life... |
| October 15 | Anniversary of the 1987 coup d’état |
| November 1 | All Saints' Day All Saints All Saints' Day , often shortened to All Saints, is a solemnity celebrated on 1 November by parts of Western Christianity, and on the first Sunday after Pentecost in Eastern Christianity, in honour of all the saints, known and unknown... |
| December 11 | Proclamation of the Republic Proclamation of the Republic Proclamation of the Republic can refer to:*Proclamation of the Irish Republic, issued during the Easter Rising of 1916*Proclamation of the Republic , celebrated by a public holiday on November 15... |
| December 25 | Christmas Christmas Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days... |