The Name Nana Buluku: An Honorific for the Oldest of All

Nana Buluku's own name carries a claim about her standing before any myth is told about her: in the Fon language, nana functions as an honorific for grandmother, mother or venerable elder rather than as a personal name in its own right, a naming pattern the wider region shares. Among the Akan of Ghana, the cognate title nana names the highest office in society and is applied equally to a revered grandparent and to a ruling chief, a gender-neutral mark of seniority rather than a description of any specific person. Applied to the figure Fon tradition holds gave rise to Mawu and Lisa and, through them, to the entire created order, the title states in the language itself what the myth states in narrative: that she precedes every other name-bearing figure in the pantheon and stands outside the generational order the vodun who followed her belong to. Herskovits's ethnography records that Fon tradition treats her precedence as acknowledged fact even where, as the companion article on her worship records, no shrine addresses her directly, and the honorific in her own name is consistent with that treatment, marking her as the eldest rather than describing any particular deed distinct from the act of creation itself. The pattern recurs elsewhere in Fon religious naming, where a dangerous or supremely senior figure is addressed by title rather than by a name spoken plainly, a practice this record documents directly on Sakpata's own entry.