Dagomba (people)
The Dagomba (also: Dagbamba , Dagbane ) are an ethnic group in the Northern Region of Ghana who are predominantly Islamic and patrilineal . The Dagomba or Dagbani language is spoken by around 800,000 people.
The Dagomba are closely related to the Mossi in Burkina Faso and the Ghanaian Mamprusi . The area of the Dagomba is over 8,000 square miles. It comprises seven different districts: Tamale Municipality, Tolon / Kumbungu, Savelugu / Nantong, Yendi, Gushegu / Karaga, Zabzugu / Tatali and Saboba / Cheriponi. The largest city in the Dagomba settlement area is Tamale .
Kingdom of the Dagomba
The three peoples Mossi, Mamprussi and Dagomba established great empires in what is now northern Ghana and what is now Burkina Faso in the 17th and 18th centuries, which are also grouped together under the name Mossi states . One of them is the Kingdom of Dagomba .
politics
The Dagomba hit the headlines in Europe as a result of two bloody events. In 1994 the tensions, especially between the Dagomba and the nomadic Konkomba, erupted in the bloodiest ethnic conflicts that the state of Ghana had ever known. Several thousand people were killed.
In 2002 a dispute over the succession to the throne of Ya Na between warring clans in the city of Yendi (see there) led to the deaths of 34 people.