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 The
Rastafari Vision and Culture |
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is in the Rastafari movement, with its origins in Jamaica,
that Ethiopianism has been most consistently elaborated for
nearly seven decades. The biblical enthronement of Ras Tafari
Makonnen in 1930 as His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Haile Selassie
I, King of King, Lord of Lords, and Conquering Lion of the
Tribe of Judah was an event widely reported throughout the
European and colonial world. It was the ensuing interpretation
of the Solomonic symbols by which Ras Tafari took possession
of a kingdom with an ancient biblical lineage which transformed
Ethiopia into an African Zion for the nascent Rasta movement.
The independence of Ethiopia as one of only two sovereign
nations on the African continent ensured Selassie's placement
at the symbolic center of the African world throughout the
colonial and much of the post-colonial period. Indicative
of this is the fact that the Organization of African Unity
(founded in 1963), is headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
To this day, it is the biblical imagery associated with the
theocratic kingdom of Ethiopia which fuels a Rastafari vision
of nationhood and underlies their deification of Emperor Haile
Selassie.
Today, it is probably fair to say that when most people hear
the word "Rastafari" they think of Bob Marley, the
"king of reggae." Through his inspirational music,
Marley did more to popularize and spread the Rasta message
worldwide than any other single individual. But neither Marley
or reggae represents the roots of the Rastafari experience.
Reggae, as a music of populist black protest and experience
which has had a formative experience upon Jamaican nationalism,
emerged in Jamaica only during the early 1970s. For at least
three decades previous to this, Rastafari in Jamaica were
evolving an African-oriented culture based on their spiritual
vision of repatriation to the African homeland.
The "Roots" or Elders of the movement have built
upon earlier sources of African cultural pride, identification,
and resistance such as those embodied by Jamaica's Maroons
--runaway slaves who formed independent communities within
the island's interior during the 17th century. Rastafari,
in fact, must be seen as a religion and movement shaped by
the African Diaspora and an explicit consciousness that black
people are African 'exiles" outside their ancestral homeland.
As one Rasta Elder stated, "Rastafari is a conception
that was born at the moment that Europeans took the first
black man out of Africa. They didn't know it then, but they
were taking the first Rasta from his homeland."
From the early 1930s, Rastafari in Jamaica have developed
a culture based on an Afrocentric reading of the Bible, on
communal values, a strict vegetarian dietary code known as
Ital, a distinctive dialect, and a ritual calendar devoted
to, among other dates, the celebration of various Ethiopian
holy days. Perhaps the most familiar feature of Rastafari
culture is the growing and wearing of dreadlocks, uncombed
and uncut hair which is allowed to knot and mat into distinctive
locks. Rastafari regard the locks as both a sign of their
African identity and a religious vow of their separation from
the wider society they regard as Babylon . In the island of
its birth, Rasta culture has also drawn upon distinctive African-Jamaican
folk traditions which includes the development of a drumming
style known as Nyabinghi . This term is similarly applied
to the island-wide gatherings in which Rastafari brethren
and sistren celebrate the important dates on an annual calendar.
With the advent of reggae, this deeper "roots culture"
has spread throughout the Caribbean, to North American and
European metropolis such as London, New York, Amsterdam, Toronto,
and Washington, D.C., as well as to the African continent
itself. This more recent growth and spread of the movement
has resulted from a variety of factors. These include the
migration of West Indians (e.g., Jamaicans, Trinidadians,
Antiguans) to North America and Europe in search of employment,
the travel of reggae musicians, and the more recent travel
of traditional Rastafari Elders outside Jamaica. At the same
time, many African American and West Indian individuals who
have become Rastafari outside Jamaica now make "pilgrimages"
to Jamaica to attend the island-wide religious ceremonies
known as Nyabinghi and to seek out the deeper "roots
culture" of the movement. Despite the fact that Rastafari
continue to be widely misunderstood and stigmatized outside
Jamaica, the movement embraces a non-violent ethic of "peace
and love" and pursues a disciplined code of religious
principles.
Since 1992 and the 100th anniversary of Haile Selassie's birth,
the Rastafari settlement in Shashamane, Ethiopia (part of
a land grant given to the black peoples of the West by Emperor
Haile Selassie in 1955) has come to serve as a growing focal
point for the movement's identification with Africa. |
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Terminology
Amharic One of the many languages of Ethiopia; the
language of the royal Ethiopian dynasty since the 13th century.
Babylon From a Rastafari perspective, Babylon is
the historically white-European colonial and imperialist
power structure which has oppressed Blacks and other peoples
of color.
Diaspora (dispersion; a migration; the dispersion
of an originally homogeneous people). The mass dispersion
of peoples of a common culture or national origin is commonly
referred to as a diaspora. Historically, these movements
tend to be forced or involuntary. They may be the result
military occupation, systematic persecution, servitude,
enslavement, or laws by which the dominant society defines
an ethnic group as marginal, undesireable, or subordinate.
These movements also tend to reflect pervasive regional
or global forces that separate peoples of common origin
form their homeland (real or imagined), leaving them to
think of themselves as exiles. Such is the case of the African
diaspora which began in the early 16th century and displaced
tens of millions of Africans from their ancestral continent
to various sites in the New World.
East Indian (Indo-Jamaican, Indo-Trinidadian, etc.):
In the Caribbean context, this term is used to refer to
individuals who came to the Caribbean (mostly Trinidad,
Jamaica, and Guyana) during the late 19th century as indentured
laborers (see image gallery).
Elders The term given to individuals of longstanding
commitment in the Rasta Movement. In everyday speech, the
status of male individuals as elders is often acknowledged
by use of the term "Bongo" as an honorific (e.g.,
addressing someone as "Bongo Hill" or "Bongo
Ketu").
Ital The Rastafari term for a saltless and vegetarian
diet. Although not all Rastafari adhere strictly to such
a diet, it serves as a model for idealized lifeways of practitioners.
During Nyabinghi ceremonies (which last for up to a week),
an Ital diet is part of the ritual protocol observed by
communicants.
Jah In Rasta speech, this term is used as a synonym
for Emperor Haile Selassie as the manifestation of the Godhead.
The term derives from the Old Testament where it appears
as an archaic form of "Jehovah" (see Psalm 68:4).
Maroons A term derived from the Spanish word cimarron,
meaning wild or unruly, used to refer to runaway slaves
in various parts of the Caribbean. In Jamaica, Maroon settlements
formed in the island's mountainous interior as early as
the mid-16th century. While small in number compared to
the overall population in Jamaica, Maroons retained strong
African-derived traditions and remained proud of their cultural
heritage. In the 20th century, Rastafari culture has continued
to carry forward this African pride in Jamaica and other
parts of the Black Diaspora.
Nyabinghi (Ni-uh-bin-gee) This term has a series
of overlapping meanings within the contemporary Rastafari
Movement. It refers variously to the island-wide religious
gatherings of Rasta brethren and sistren at which communicants
"praise Jah" and "chant down Babylon,"
to the three-part drum ensemble on which chants are composed,
to the African-derived dance-drumming style performed at
these events, and to the corpus of chants themselves. It
also refers to the most orthodox organization within the
broader Rasta movement variously known as the House of Nyabinghi
or the Theocratic Government of Emperor Haile Selassie I.
The term Nyabinghi entered the movement in late 1935 during
the Italian Invasion of Ethiopia and is actually derived
from an African secret society which operated in the Congo
and Ruwanda during the last quarter of the 19th century.
Ras Tafari the pre-coronation name of Emperor Haile
Selassie I. Ras is an Amharic term equivalent to duke or
lord. And Tafari Makonnen was the family name of Emperor
Selassie. Rastafari is the same name taken by members of
the Rastafari movement who regard the Ethiopian Emperor
as the reincarnation of Christ as well as the embodiment
of the Godhead.
Reggae Sometimes called "the King's music"
or "roots music", reggae is the Rasta-inspired
music of black protest which emerged in Jamaica during the
late 1960s. Reggae reflects the basic rhythmic influences
of Nyabinghi drumming as well as that of other African Jamaican
musical traditions. During the 1970s, Rastafari-inspired
reggae themes became central to the emergent national consciousness
of Jamaicans, both Rastafari and non-Rastafari alike. During
this same period, the music developed an international following
in Europe, the United States, and on the African continent.
West Indian The term used to refer to the peoples
and cultures of the Caribbean archipelago and parts of the
Circum-Caribbean rimlands from present-day Belize to Jamaica
in the Greater Antilles to Trinidad and Barbados in the
Lesser Antilles. Hence, Jamaicans, Trinidadians, Antiguans,
and others are often referred to collectively as West Indians.
This is a problematic term since it does not refer to a
single ethnic, linguistic, or national background. West
Indian reflects the multicultural and migrant backgrounds
of the populations that comprise the Caribbean as a cultural
area.
Zion From a Rasta perspective, Zion refers broadly to Africa
and more specifically to Ethiopia as the ancestral homeland
of all black peoples. The symbols of Rastafari culture identify
with this domain in its various spiritual, cultural, and
political connotations.
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