ABSTRACT
The large earthen compounds of the Kasena in Burkina Faso, called songo, are famous for their complex structure and decoration. However, earthen houses are no longer inherited and have thus almost disappeared. In this paper, we attempt to verify the chronological transformation of the housing and family systems of the Kasena. Consequently, we indicate that all the 8-sided rooms (diniya-didiyou) have been abandoned, a songo is not a connected compound, but consists of clusters of rooms, the eastern half of the clusters is densely constructed, but the western half is not, each cluster roughly corresponds to a dâ and generally comprises the founder of the songo, his wives, their children and their wives, and some, but not all, dâ have changed in accordance with the founder’s life cycle. For these reasons, the songo have expanded unequally and the transformation of “traditional” architecture is not uniform.
