A Comparative Analysis of Provisos for Non-Human Agents in Property Laws of Pristine West African Legal Culture

There are provisos for non-human agents in property laws of pristine West African legal culture that survived coloniality. This paper analysed these non-human agents and how they were used to protect communal and individual property. The research is imperative as the evidence for historical reconstruction of these legal provisos becomes more distant each passing year due to coloniality. It adopted the historical method with the interpretive and comparative designs. Primary and secondary sources were also utilised. The primary sources include examinations of the relics of these non-human agents, oral interviews, ethnographical and cultural studies while the secondary sources include the relevant published books and journal articles. The finding reveals that everything among the legal culture under investigation had life and could be possessed by spirit beings or tabooed. This spiritual belief was utilised in regulating and checking abuse of public resources. Findings also show that the rules of these taboos were enforced by physical courts in protecting the environment and the resources therein. Findings also show that the non-human agents certified and documented private property and the economic status of wealthy individuals. In addition, it reveals how the rights of usage of the property owners were recognised and protected by laws.