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person (usually, but not always, a male) chosen in a meeting of the entire
ebusua who represents the lineage in the Council of Elders, approves the
marriage and/or divorce oflineage members, and administers the lineage
property. This usuallyindudes the administration oftheebusua asase, the
family land, the allocation of which is a vital lineage responsibility. Forthis
purpose some lineages have instituted the special office of Asasewura or
land custodian.
The mbusua into which a community is divided do not hold the
final or absolute (also: allodial = without having to acknowledge any
superior) title to the land but are considered to hold it on behalf of the
Paramount Chief or Omanhene. As head of a state, i.e of one of the
independent territories into which the Gold Coast was formerly divided,
the Omanhene occupies the Paramount Stool; this is the shrine that
contains the spirit ofthe oman, i.e. of the people or nation. And it is in the
Omanhene that, in the final instance, the people's title to the land is seen
to be vested. 9
For the moment we shall leave out of consideration the fact that,
in the present stage of social and economic development, legal conceptions
such as the lineage being a 'corporate personality' and of an 'absolute' title
to land being vested in the Omanhene, have to be treated with suspicion
(Woodman 1976: 160). Such issues will be discussed in the following
chapter. But it is important to point out here that such a picture of
overwhelming communality tends to conceal that, as under pre-colonial
conditions, individual cultivators for all practical purposes now hold the
land as ifthey were the owners (legally: as ifthey were 'free-holders '). Not
only do they till the same plots of land throughout their lives, but on their
death their farms may be transfered unhindered to their inheritors, be these
testamentary or intestate. We might also find them making a gift of land
(inter vivos) to those who could not benefit under the inheritance, such as
a faithful wife or a helping son. And, what may seem to many as in clear
contradiction to 'communal' land tenure, they may sell some of their land
outright.
This then leads us to the question of the 'communality' of Akan
land tenure. In other words, in what respects did the rights of the Akan
landholder in the pre-colonial past differ from those of a private property
holder? The answer is that the farmer's control over his land was subject
to restrictions which arose from his obligations towards the community.
It may bethat nowadays private property is also seen as restricted, but such
restrictions which arise from the common interest are very different to
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