Yennega, an emblematic figure in Burkina Faso, is the mother of Ouedraogo, the first Moaga* chieftain and founder of the dynasties of the Moose* chieftains. She is thought to have lived between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Yennega was the daughter of the King of Gambaga, an area in the northern part of the present-day Republic of Ghana. One day, weary of the role of warrior chieftain in which her father had cast her, she decided to leave and rode off by horse into a forest, far away from her village, where she lost her way. She met a young elephant hunter, a lone figure from a different community from her own, whose name was Riale. They had a son, whom they called Ouedraogo (‘male horse’ in Moore, the language of the Moose), as a tribute to the horse that had brought Yennega to Riale.
‘Moose’ is the plural of ‘Moaga’ in Moore, one of the main languages spoken in Burkina Faso. Moose people account for a large part of the population in the country today.