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As the early morning sun rises over dusty parapets, the king emerges from his mud palace wearing scarlet robes and clutching a long sword.
He strides toward a stallion reined in by a young courtier while several noblemen scurry behind. The king is preparing to wage war despite the fears of his followers. "Don't go," the attendants plead in low, melodic voices.
After a short debate, the ruler, the Mogho Naba, reluctantly agrees to abandon his war. After all, he concedes, leaders need to stay alive to serve their people.
It is a centuries-old story, but one that is re-enacted every Friday morning by the Mogho Naba at his palace in Ouagadougou, the shambling capital of impoverished, windswept Burkina Faso.
The ritual symbolizes the survival struggle of the 900-year-old Mossi monarchy, which is shared among four kings and is one of Africa's oldest and most resilient dynasties, even though the nation is legally a republic.
After braving nearly a millennium of attacks by Arab and Berber armies, white French colonial masters and latter-day African dictators, Mossi kings...