Editing Mossi people (section)

===Craftsmen and ordinary citizens===
[[File:Pg063 Arrivée d'une bande de Mossi.jpg|thumb|Arrival of a band of Mossi, 1892]]
They constitute the larger part of the population and are all subjects of the emperor. These two groups are generally fused but have internal subdivisions, each one having its own ruling family; they perform ceremonies and other important events. Mossi people often identify with groups; hence, at all levels, there is a [[hierarchy]] in Mossi society. In everyday life, the family hierarchy is most important, and family is often directly associated with the notion of [[hierarchy]] for the Mossi.

'Mogonaba' was what [[Leo Frobenius]] was told was the appropriate term for the emperor of Mossi at Wagadugu when he visited the country in 1904–6. His is one of the few disinterested reports as he was an [[anthropologist]] and not a missionary, representative of a European company, or military. He describes a court much like a European one (he may have an anti-aristocratic bias) with nobles in intrigues over commerce, power and industry. This report alone caused disbelief in Europe as no European source had ever considered Africans to be socially like Europeans. The lack of racism in Frobenius' report and his discovery of an industrious people and what some would describe as a glorious past interested [[W.E.B. Du Bois]] in Frobenius' other writings on Africa. Rudolf Blind's translation in English of the ''Voice of Africa,'' published by Hutchinson & Co., produced some racist comments he thought necessary to conform with English sensitivities — otherwise he believed no Englishman would consider the book realistic.

An important contribution was made in the 1960s by the historian [[Elliott P. Skinner]], who wrote at length about the sophistication of Mossi political systems in ''The Mossi of the Upper Volta: The Political Development of a Sudanese People.'' This was at a time when many African countries were gaining independence, and Skinner strongly made the point that African peoples were very clearly qualified to govern themselves.<ref>Skinner, Eliott P., ''The Mossi of the Upper Volta: The Political Development of a Sudanese People,'' Stanford, Stanford University Press</ref>