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The dreadlocks are also a
special symbol for all Rastas, because by growing them Rastafarians become
more similar to the Lion of Judah and less similar to the blond look of
white Europeans. Fore Rastas Dreadlocks are their roots, their
establishment... But also dreadlocks are supported in the Rastafarian Bible:
"They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off
the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in the flesh" (Leviticus
21:5)...
Rastafarians try to eat only Ital food (a saltless and vegetarian diet of
Rastas). In most cases Rastafarians don't eat meat, but they never eat pigs
(fore Rastas pigs are scavengers of the earth). Rastas eat small fish (not
more than 12 inches long) but don't eat crabs, lobster, and shrimp (the are
also scavengers, but of the sea). They don't add any seasoning like salt or
condiments. And they never eat any chemically prepared or unnatural meal in
cans. Rastafarians attribute soft drinks to unnatural things so they drink
anything that is herbal (tea...)
ORIGINS OF
RASTAFARI
The source of Rastafari lies in a
specific geographical area, the Nile Valley, a huge region that includes
Egypt in the North and Ethiopia in the south. The philosophy at the heart of
Rastafari is gathered from the soul of this part of Africa. For example, it
acknowledges Ra, revered by the Egyptians as the god of the sun, as a
life-giving force, and accepts that mankind is not separate or different
from God, or Jah, an abbreviation for Jehovah.
KING SOLOMON
In the time of King Solomon, Queen Makeba ruled over the empire of Sheba,
which consisted of Ethiopia, Egypt and parts of Persia. The Queen's visit to
the wealthy and wise Solomon in Jerusalem had been planned for many years.
In Jerusalem, Solomon converted her to the God of Abraham; she had until
then worshipped the sun in the person of Ra the sun-god. When she returned
to her land, Queen Makeba changed the religion of her empire to Judaism.
On her return, Makeba was pregnant by Solomon; she had promised him that if
she bore a son she would send the boy to Jerusalem for instruction by his
father. Accordingly, her son Menelik journeyed, as a young man, to meet
Solomon, having sworn to his mother that as heir and successor to the
kingdom he would return to Ethiopia.
When Menelik was leaving Jerusalem, King Solomon saw to it that he was
accompanied by the sons of his priests: he wanted to ensure that the
religion of Abraham would continue in Ethiopia. As a result, this religion
existed there in an undiluted form.
CHRISTIANITY / JUDAISM
At the heart of Rastafari lie the Egyptian mysteries, the sort that may be
found in The Egyptian Book of the Dead. The elements of Judaism within
Rastafari are themselves an offspring of Egyptian mysticism. This became
institutionalised by Moses; when adopted by the High Priest's daughter in
Egypt, he was taught the principles of Osiris, Isis and other Egyptian gods.
For his final initiation he traveled to Ethiopia. The source of Judaism was
the teaching of Moses. As tradition has it, Moses was author of the first
five books of the Bible (the sixth and seventh books of Moses are considered
to be too complex for the common man to comprehend; there is a famous obeah
textbook entitled The Sixth and Seventh Book of Moses).
During the time of Christianity, however, Paul the Apostle converted an
Ethiopian eunuch to Christianity. This eunuch was a high-placed, respected
rabbi of orthodox Judaism. When he returned to Ethiopia, he in turn
converted the country to Christianity.
So began the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, a pure form of Christianity that
kept its connection with its Judaic and Egyptian pasts, all elements within
Rastafari. This church had considerable influence on the 225th king
(descended directly from King David, who, in turn, was descended from
Moses). This member of Ethiopian royalty was
Ras Tafari, Emperor Haile
Selassie I. Before his visit to
Jamaica on 21 April 1966,
Haile Selassie had
already established the Ethiopian Orthodox Church there, in answer to a
request from the island's Rastafarians.
BELIEFS, PRACTICES AND SACRAMENTS
Rastafarians acknowledge that their
religion is the blending of the purest forms of both Judaism and
Christianity; they also accept the Egyptian origins of both these religions.
In affirming the divinity of
Haile Selassie, Rastafari rejects the
Babylonian hypocrisy of the modern church. The church of Rome, and even the
council of Rome, are considered to be particularly Babylonian: was it not
from this city that Mussolini invaded the holy land of Ethiopia in 1935?
Religions always reflect the social and geographical environment out of
which they emerge, and Jamaican Rastafari is no exception: for example, the
use of marijuana as a sacrament and aid to meditation is logical in a
country where a particularly potent strain of 'herb' grows freely.
MARIJUANA: THE WEED OF WISDOM
In fact, the herb "ganja" (marijuana) was regarded as "wisdomweed," and
Rasta leaders urged that it be smoked as a religious rite, alleging that it
was found growing on the grave of King Solomon and citing biblical passages,
such as Psalms 104:14, to attest to its sacramental properties: "He causeth
the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man, that he
may bring forth food out of the earth."
"ITAL"
DIET AND DREADLOCKS
A set of dietary and hygienic laws were formulated to accompany the
religion's doctrine. They urged their flocks to shun the ingestion of
alcohol, tobacco, all meat (especially pork), as well as shellfish,
scaleless fish, snails, predatory and scavenger species of marine life, and
many common seasonings like salt. In short, anything that was not "ital," a
Rasta term meaning pure, natural or clean, was forbidden.
They also outlawed was the combing or cutting of hair, citing the holy
directive in Leviticus 21:5: "They shall not make baldness upon their head,
neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any
cuttings in their flesh." Their nappy tresses were allowed to mat and twine
themselves into ropy dreadlocks, so called to mock non-believers' aversion
to their appearance. (The noun "dread" has also since evolved into a word of
praise.)
BABYLON WILL FALL
The Rastas deny allegations by other relgious groups that they were
antiwhite or antibrown (mulatto) and invited all to repent and accept Jah (a
shortened form of Jehovah). They vowed that at a secret hour known only to a
devout few, converts would return to Ethiopia by an undisclosed means,
leaving behind the tropical steambath of
Jamaica, which they considered to
be literally Hell on Earth. Until that time, Rastas would refuse to take
part in the machinations of daily life and commerce in "Babylon," the sphere
of temporal captivity of the spirit.
The poor flocked to the Rastas' call, since the cult's creed lent a certain
nobility to their alienated status. As Rastas, they could now await with
dignity the Judgment Day, when the last shall be first and the first shall
be last.
THE HOLY PIBY
The true foundation of Rastafari is
the Holy Piby, the "Black Man's Bible," compiled by Robert Athlyi Rogers of
Anguilla from 1913 to 1917. It was published, not coincidentally, in the
same year Rev. Webb made his declaration-1924. A Barbadian minister named
Rev. Charles F. Goodridge came upon the secret Bible in Colon, Panama.
But at the same time large quantities were being printed in Newark, New
Jersey, by other believers, and from there, copies of the Piby were shipped
to Kimberly, South Africa, where missionaries of black supremacy started a
church for the diamond-field workers called the Afro-Athlican Constructive
Church (AACC). Through these proselytizing efforts, Goodridge became
associated with a woman named Grace Jenkins Garrison, and together they
brought the doctrine of the Holy Piby to Jamaica in 1925, founding a branch
of the AACC under the name the Hamatic Church.
Meeting immediately with much persecution from the Fundamentalist,
Revivalist and more conventional Christian church leaders for their
adherence to the occult Bible, Goodridge and Garrison fled into the bush
country of the parish of St. Thomas, in Eastern Jamaica, and it was there
that the seeds of Rastafarianism were implanted. Early Rasta leaders like
Leonard P. Howell gravitated to the forbidden encampments to read the Holy
Piby-purportedly the closest thing to the first Bible, which was said to
have been written in Amharic (for centuries the official language of
Ethiopia, and allegedly the original language of mankind).
Goodridge and Garrison maintained that under the early popes white church
scholars distorted the Amharic Bible in the translating and editing process
to make God and His prophets Caucasian instead of black. Among the chapters
in the Piby was one called "The Black Man's Map of Life," which spelled out
his difficult but ultimately glorious destiny from Creation to Armageddon
and beyond.
THE RISE OF RASTAFARI
In
Jamaica, as elsewhere in the world, the 1930s were years of social
upheaval. Labour unrest on the island culminated in the vicious suppression
of striking sugar-cane workers in Westmoreland: four strikers were shot
dead, and dozens rounded up and jailed, including Alexander Bustamente, the
leader of the new
Jamaican labour movement.
It was a perfect context for the rise of a band of islanders who divorced
themselves mentally from an oppressive social system. This cult,
Rastafarianism, thus became cast as a religion of the dispossessed among
those who failed to acknowledge the intellectual rigor of many practitioners
(the depth of Biblical and historical knowledge displayed at a Rastafarian
reasoning is intense).
In the hills of eastern Jamaica, Rastafarian encampments sprang up; a life
of asceticism and artistry became the armour of the religion's followers
against Babylon. Leonard Howell, one of the island's chief propagators of
the religion, founded the Pinnacle encampment in an abandoned estate between
Kingston and Spanish Town. Howell eventually decided that it was not Haile
Selassie who was Jah but himself. In 1954 he was thrown into a mental home,
and Pinnacle was closed down.
The dreads, as Rastafarians became known colloquially, spilled out into the
ghettoes of west Kingston. Around the time of independence in 1962, there
were a number of violent incidents involving fire-arms between Rastas and
the police, making headlines in the Daily Gleaner. The movement was now
traveling with the speed of a bush-fire into the popular psyche of
Jamaica.
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