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land. This intervening role ofthe ebusua provides the system with a double
safeguard:
- on the one hand it guarantees that an individual's claim to land
is not a diffuse but a definite claim to a definite area ofland;
- on the other hand, it ensures that the size of an individual's
allocation will not conflict with the interests of other members
or with the claims of future generations.
This is one of the most notable features of the system by which it is able to
resist any alienation ofland to strangers and any claims of family members
that would endanger the subsistence 0 fboth present and future generations.
This was saliently expressed by Nana Ofori Atta, the late Akim Abuakwa
chief when he said: 'I conceive that land belongs to a vast family of whom
many are dead, a few are living and countless hosts are still unborn' (Meek
1946: 178). In simpler language but even more strikingly, the same view was
expressed by an Ebubonku peasant when he told the author: 'We are
holding the land for all those who come up behind us.' 13
This factor is closely connected with the belief that family land is
really owned by the asamanio, that is, by the spirits of the ancestors, and
that the living are merely their trustees, responsible for holding the family
land together and for administering it properly. This belief reinforces the
reluctance to alienate land to strangers and puts a limit on the claims of
individual members. 14
As a result, customary law ensures that 'every member of the
community is entitled to cultivate unoccupied land in which the community
holds the allodial title and to acquire thereby a usufruct (or customary
freehold)' (Woodman 1976: 163). This, of course, assumes that a person
fulfills his or her obligations towards the community (or towards the state,
the 'oman') as well as towards the ebusua. The latter involves active
attendance of the lineage council meetings, regular payment of financial
contributions towards the costs of funerals and festivals etc; and the sharing
in any corporate liabilities such as might arise from litigation over lineage
land. In addition, they include giving assistance to needful lineage members
commensurate with a member's wealth and influence.
Although the amount a person can successfully claim is dependent
on the size of the family land relative to the number of adult family members
who claim land, the average acreage of an individual's farmland is first of
all determined by his or her subsistence needs; at the same time, it is
physically limited by the personal capacity to clear and till it.
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