According to doctor Salif Titamba Lankoande, in Noms de famille (Patronymes) au Burkina Faso, the name Gurunsi comes from the Djerma language of Niger words “Guru-si”, which means “iron does not penetrate”.

It is said that during the Djerma invasions of Gurunsi lands in the late 19th century, a Baba Ato Zato (better known by the Hausa corruption of his name: Babatu) recruited a battalion of indigenous men for his army, who after having consumed traditional medicines, were said to be invulnerable to iron.

Historically, these towns were subjects of the Mossi Empire This area became in the late 1890s part of a three-way competition between the colonial forces of the French, the British, and the Germans, trying to subdue Djerma warlords and fight also the warlike local population who resisted fiercely to maintain its autonomy, while vying to occupy as much territory as possible at the expense of rival colonial powers.

This partition divided the Kassena peoples among French and British administrative systems, with some Kassenas living in southern Burkina Faso, notably in the Naouhri province and the cities of Tiebele and Pô, and some living in Ghana notably in the Kassena-Nankana administrative district, Navrongo, and in the city of Paga.

In her book “Stirring Life: Women's Paths and Places Among the Kasena of Northern Ghana”,[4] she elaborates on the material culture, rituals and social practices as experienced in a rural Kassena village.