The Dagara and their Neighbors (Burkina Faso and Ghana)

Abstract

Today, Dagara settlements can be found on both sides of the Black Volta River (Mouhoun), roughly between the 11°20' and 10° parallels. The international boundary between Ghana and Burkina Faso divides a Dagara-speaking population which should soon reach a million persons. However, given ethnic categories have been suppressed in the population censuses of both Burkina Faso and Ghana since the 1960s, this can only be a rough estimate. The region lies within the Sudanic vegetation belt of the West African savannah, where millet, sorghum, corn and yams are grown as the main staples. Migrant labour has been an important economic factor in the region from early colonial times up to the present day, with many Dagara working the gold mines and plantations of southern Ghana and the Ivory Coast.

This bibliography was revised and updated in June 2000. While literature on the Dagara should be more or less complete, titles on the neighboring societies such as the Lobi, Birifor, Dyan, Phuo (Pougouli), Bwaba, and Sisala, may not be, as they merely reflect the specific research interests of the project members. The scope of the bibliography is not so much governed by ethnic criteria but rather by a more or less well defined regional frame. We do not aspire to compile an exhaustive bibliography on stateless gur- or voltaic-speaking societies; therefore one will not find - to cite just one example - Meyer Fortes’s writings on the Tallensi. On the other hand works on Kong, Wa, the Zaberma and the regional Dyula trade are included because these states or groups had some influence on the Dagara and their immediate neighbors. However, literature on regional powers such as the Mossi, Mamprusi or Gonja states are not included as they were of no or only very indirect relevance for the history of our research region.