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Some Notes on the Yoruba Rules of Succession and on “Family Property”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

P. C. Lloyd
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Extract

“A social anthropological approach to property as a social institution leads us to the position where we look upon inheritance not as ‘the entrance of living persons into the possession of dead persons’ property’ (a) or even as ‘succession to all rights of the deceased’ (b) but rather as the transference of statuses from the dead to the living with respect to specific property objects.”2 A man holds many statuses each of which probably gives rights and duties in respect of property; on his death these statuses do not necessarily pass to a single individual—they may well pass individually to a number of persons each of whom succeeds to the rights and duties of the particular status which has passed to him. The status may be transferred or may even disappear. If we analyse the Yoruba customary rules of succession in this manner we shall, I believe, be able to dispel some of the confusion which surrounds the concept of ‘family property’, with its attendant problems—the respective rights of sons and brothers to the deceased's property, the rights of daughters to inherit, the rights attaching to individual and family or inherited property, the distinction between movable and immovable property, the rights over individually held houses or cocoa farms situated on family land.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of African Law , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , Spring 1959 , pp. 7 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1959

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References

2 Hoebel, E. A., The Law of Primitive Man, 1954, pp. 59–60,Google Scholar quoting in turn (a) Cole, G. D. H., “Inheritance”, Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, VIII, 1932, p. 35Google Scholar and (b) Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, ed. Baldwin, W. E., 1934, p. 549.Google Scholar

3 Oil palms usually grow wild; management of them frequently vests in the family head who may allocate them to family members for their own use or retain the proceeds from some or all of the trees for family expenses.

page 8 note 1 In Abeokuta the presidents of both the Ake ‘A’ Court and the Egba Native Court of Appeal, to which most land cases go, have, since 1930 and 1948 respectively, been barristers; today both presidents are Egba chiefs and consciously decide cases according to customary law. This situation has been unique however. With the operation of the Customary Courts Law, 1958, more courts will have barristers as presidents and in these, for the first time, barristers may practise.

page 8 note 2 Most of these cases concern Lagos where the Yoruba population is heterogenous and where tribal institutions have decayed more swiftly than elsewhere. My own informants, when told of some of the decisions reported from these Courts, stated that they embodied serious misconceptions of Yoruba customary law as practiced in their towns. I feel therefore, with respect, that great caution should be exercised in using these cases as evidence of the customary law at present accepted in Yoruba towns. The judges of the Native Courts are almost invariably completely ignorant of these reported cases (which would, however, be cited as precedents in appeals from their own courts to the High Court), basing their judgments solely on customary law.

page 9 note 1 For a fuller description of Yoruba political systems see my article “The Traditional Political System of the Yoruba”, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 10, No. 4, 1954, pp. 366–384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 9 note 2 Ebi is widely used by the Yoruba not only to denote both the patrilineage and the cognatic descent groups but also by an individual to denote all his relatives. It is as imprecise as the English word “family” though in context its meaning is usually clear. A cognatic descent group consists of all persons tracing descent in male, female and mixed lines from the named apical ancestor.

page 9 note 3 Since male and female members enjoy equal rights, one frequently finds men claiming land rights through a maternal grandmother, for women usually have few children while a wealthy man almost invariably has many among whom land is allocated or partitioned, the individual child’s share of his father’s estate being therefore minute. This can give a false impression of matrilineal descent!

page 9 note 4 I have outlined the structure of the patrilineage more fully in “The Yoruba lineage”, Africa, Vol. XXV, 1955, pp. 235–251.Google Scholar

page 10 note 1 The terms “family property”, “family land”, “family house” are not entirely satisfactory; “family land” usually refers to land held by a kin group tracing descent from an ancestor through many generations; “lineage land” might be a more descriptive term (for Ekiti, Oyo, etc.). The “family houses” are the result of modern building practices; the oldest of them were built by the grandparents of today’s elders. Yet the differences in scale—in generation-depth and span—implied in the two terms are not differences in quality. There is no point at which a “family” becomes a “lineage” and the Yoruba use of the term ebi throughout emphasises this lack of distinction.

page 10 note 2 For diagram of kinship system see p. 31, post.

page 12 note 1 The interests acquired need not constitute an absolute title—leased property or a pawned farm can rank as “self-acquired interests” and will pass to successors in the manner outlined below.

page 13 note 1 Within the kin group a wife is senior to members born after her marriage into the group, junior to those born before it; it is sometimes said that a man cannot take as an inherited wife one who is senior to him and whom he must therefore treat respectfully. In practice of course by the time a man is old enough to take an inherited wife, women senior to him are past child-bearing age.

page 15 note 1 Sometimes an only child or sole surviving child constitutes an omoiya or obakan.

page 16 note 1 ▲—male, deceased; Δ—male, living; ●—female, deceased; Ο—female, living; =—marriage.

page 19 note 1 Johnson, S., The History of the Yorubas, 1937, pp. 326–7.Google Scholar Adebesin Folarin makes a similar point in The Laws and Customs of Egbaland, 1939, p. 86.Google Scholar

page 24 note 1 A customary tenant holds usufructuary rights in perpetuity; he may not alienate these but they will pass to his issue by the normal rules of inheritance; he takes no part in the management of the “family land” of which his plot forms a part.

page 27 note 1 The death of ex-slaves is fairly common in Abeokuta and does raise these problems, but these have neither near nor distant kin and their interests in land revert to the original grantor or to the oba.

page 30 note 1 An instance occurred in Ondo town when a woman from a neighbouring town died, leaving self-acquired house property which she had built with money realised from the sale of her father’s house. The Ondo chiefs sent to the woman’s paternal kin, and not to her mother’s family, to come and take the property.