Provision for the redemption of alienated land exists in the customary law of many African tribes. Nor is it confined to Africa. Rattray, in discussing land redemption among the Ashanti, quotes the Levitical law of the Old Testament:
“The land shall not be sold for ever for the land is mine … if thy brother be waxen poor and has sold away some of his possessions and if any of his kin come to redeem then shall he redeem that which his brother sold.”