The name of Accra in the local Ga language is "Ga" or "Gaga", the same name as that of the Ga people and a cognate with "Nkran". The word is sometimes rendered with the nasalised vowels as "Gã" or "Gãgã". Historian Carl Christian Reindorf confirmed this etymology, proposing a link between the martial qualities and migratory behaviour of the local ants and those of the Ga people. The link between the ethnonym and ants was explicitly reflected in the recognition of anthills as sacred places. Often ringed by sacred fences ("aklabatsa"), the tall red mounds dotting Accra's hinterland were seen as microcosms of human community and as nodal points between the known world and the world of the dead.