Losso

The Lossos (Nawdba, sing. Nawda) are an ethnic and linguistic group of people living in the Doufelgou District (Préfecture) of the Kara Region in Northern Togo, West Africa. The district capital is Niamtougou which is also an important regional market town. The Lossos live on a plateau in the Togo Mountains between two mountain ranges: the Kabiyé Mountains to the South and the Défalé Chain to the North. They occupy the communities of Niamtougou, Koka, Baga, Ténéga, Siou, Djogrergou, Sioudouga, Kpadeba, Hago, Koukou, and Kounfaga. The Doufelgou District is bordered by the Kozah District to the South, by the Binah District to the East, by the Bassar District to the West, by the Kéran District to the North, and by the international border with Bénin to the Northeast.

The Lossos are primarily engaged in subsistence farming and small animal husbandry, especially chickens, guinea fowl, goats, pigs, and sheep. They grow millet and sorghum that they make into a thick porridge (la pâte) that is the staple of their diet and that they brew into a thick low-alcohol beer called daam. They also grow yams and cassava, groundnuts (peanuts), beans, and fonio. In the late 1800s, early European explorers such as the ethnographer, Leo Frobenius, baptized them the "palm tree people" because of the concentration of oil palm trees in their home area.

The Lossos have migrated in search of fertile available land to the area along the North-South National Road No. 1 between Sokodé and Notsé, where they have founded numerous communities. In addition, they have migrated to Togo's capital city, Lomé, and to Accra, the capital of Ghana, in search of wage employment. They have also migrated to the Plateau Region of Togo and the Volta Region of Ghana where they work as sharecroppers in coffee and cocoa plantations. Losso men served in the colonial armies of Germany, Britain, and France as well as in the Ghanaian and Togolese armies in the years following the independences of the two countries.

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