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A Note on the Gã Law of Succession1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
Extract
So said the learned Chief Justice in the year 1912, when he held, after ‘consulting the authorities’, that ‘inheritance is not from father to son’ in Accra custom!
For many years learned judges in the Gold Coast courts have expressed a similar opinion, each taking comfort as to the correctness of his decision from the words of his predecessors. This colossal pyramid of error rests on several facts:—
1. The earliest customary law with which British judges in the Gold Coast became familiar was that of the Fantes, especially around Cape Coast.
2. In Fante custom inheritance is matrilineal.
3. Practically the sole written authority as to customary law consulted by the judges has been Sarbah's work, which, despite its title of Fanti Customary Laws, has frequently been invoked to decide cases concerning Gã and Ewe custom.
4. The evidence submitted in each particular case tending to disprove the proposition that Gã succession is matrilineal has been rejected as a result of the prejudice (derived from facts 1, 2, and 3) that ‘the ordinary rule of native customary law [sic] as to descent of property through the female line prima facie applies’ —Aryeh v. Dawuda: (1944) 10 W.A.C.A. 188; and sole reliance has been placed on the ‘expert’ witnesses who have solemnly sworn that Gã inheritance is matrilineal.
- Type
- Notes and Communications
- Information
- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , February 1953 , pp. 164 - 169
- Copyright
- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1953
References
page 164 note 2 Cf. Hammond v. Randolph (Privy Council: 1936), 5Google Scholar W.A.C.A. 42; at page 44 Sarbah, , Fanti Customary LawsGoogle Scholar, is quoted, and ‘… These being the principles which their Lordships have to apply in the present case ….’, the case (one of succession in Accra) was decided in accordance with Fante law.
page 165 note 1 Or Some Judgments of Divisional and Full Courts held in the Gold Coast Colony, 1919.Google Scholar
page 165 note 2 Author's italics.
page 166 note 1 Unreported: No. 28 of 1939; see 9 W.A.C.A. 132.
page 166 note 2 In Cole v. Cole.
page 166 note 3 Author's italics.
page 167 note 1 ‘Law of Succession among the Akras or the Gã Tribes Proper of the Gold Coast’, Journal of the African Soc. (1910), x, 64–72.Google Scholar
page 167 note 2 Author's italics.
page 168 note 1 The reader may care to consult Field, Social Organization of the Gã People, for the sociological background; and especially pp. 43 et seq. (under the title of ‘Inheritance’) where the author gives an account of G~ succession supporting its patrilineal character as put forward here.