The Gonja (also Ghanjawiyyu, endonym Ngbanya) people are a subgroup of the Guan ethnic group that live in Ghana. The Gonja established a kingdom in northern Ghana of the same name, which was founded in 1675 by Sumaila Ndewura Jakpa.
Origin The Gonja are a Guan people who have been influenced by Dagbon, Akan, Mande and Hausa people. With the fall of the Songhai Empire (c. 1600), the Mande Ngbanya clan moved south, crossing the Black Volta and founding their capital city at Yagbum under the leadership of Naba'a. The Gonja kingdom was originally divided into sections overseen by male siblings of Sumaila Ndewura Jakpa including their children and grandchildren.
Culture
Precolonial Gonja society was stratified into castes, with a ruling class, a Muslim trader class, an animist commoner class, and a slave class. Its economy depended largely on trade in slaves from Central AfricaThe Evolution of War: A Study of Its Role in Early Societies by Maurice R. Davie and kola nuts, particularly through the market town of Salaga, sometimes called the "Timbuktu of the South."
The Gonja language, properly called Ngbanya or Ngbanyito,Mary E. Kropp Dakubu (ed.), The Languages of Ghana, page 77 is a Tano language within the Kwa languages family, closely related to Akan languages.Aspect and Modality in Kwa Languages. books.google.com. Google Books.
Most Gonja are Muslims but still incorporate traditional practices and beliefs. The Gonja converted to Islam around the 18th century due to the influence of Muslim missionaries and merchants who settled in the region. Healing powers attributed to the Muslims and perceived strength of Islamic prayer encouraged conversion, together with trade.
Notable Gonja people John Mahama (b. 1958), president of Ghana
See also Rulers of the Northern state of Gonja Gonja (kingdom)
References
Further reading Jack Goody, "The social organisation of the LoWiili", Oxford University Press, 1956 Jack Goody, The Ethnology of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast, West of the White Volta, 1958 Jack Goody, Death, Property and the Ancestors: A study of the mortuary customs of the Lodagaa of West Africa, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1962 Jack Goody and J.A. Braimah, "Salaga: The Struggle for Power", London, Longmans, 1967 Jack Goody, The Myth of the Bagre, Oxford University Press, 1972 Goody, Esther and Jack Goody. "The Circulation of Women and Children in Northern Ghana." Man, New Series. 2.2 (1967): 226-248. Wilks, Ivor. "Wangara, Akan and Portuguese in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries II: The Struggle for Trade." Journal of African History 23:4 (1982): 463-472.
External links Ethnologue entry on Gonja language Gonja Association of North America (archived 15 January 2009) Official website of the Gonja Association of Ghana