n.
People of Burkina Faso and other parts of western Africa, mainly Mali and Togo.
They speak Mooré, a Gur language of the Niger-Congo family. Mossi society, organized as in the former Mossi states ( 0441; 15001895), is divided into royalty, nobles, commoners, and formerly slaves. The morho naba ("big lord") occupies a court in Ouagadougou . In the colonial era the Mossi acted as trading intermediaries between the forest states and the cities of the Niger. Today most of the nearly six million Mossi are sedentary farmers.