Gourma redirects here. For the Burkina Faso province, see Gourma Province.
Gurma (also called Gourma or Gourmantché) is an ethnic group living mainly in Burkina Faso, around Fada N'Gourma, and also in northern areas of Togo and Benin, as well as southwestern Niger. They number approximately 1,150,000.
They might include the Bassaries who live in northern Togo and the Northern Volta of Ghana.
Gurma is also the name of a language spoken by the Gurma (or bigourmantcheba - as they call themselves) people, which is part of the Gur language family. See Gurmanchema language and Oti-Volta languages for related languages spoken by the Gurma.
In 1985, Dr. Richard Alan Swanson wrote a book about these people, Gourmantché Ethnoanthropology: A Theory of Human Being. The book presents Gourmantché perception of 'human being' from the perspective of the people themselves, using their own language texts to illustrate concepts. Concepts of God (Otienu), destiny (licabili), the body (gbannandi), life (limiali), death (mikuuma), and all known terms for human body parts are also discussed.
Famous quotes containing the word people:
“The fact that white people readily and proudly call themselves “white,” glorify all that is white, and whitewash all that is glorified, becomes unnatural and bigoted in its intent only when these same whites deny persons of African heritage who are Black the natural and inalienable right to readily—proudly—call themselves “black,” glorify all that is black, and blackwash all that is glorified.”
—Abbey Lincoln (b. 1930)