history of rastafarians

Rastafarians call themselves such after Ras (prince) Tafari Makonnen, whose coronation as Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia on November 2 1930 inspired them to believe that the messiah had returned. It grew strongly both in rural Jamaica and in the capital Kingston between the thirties and the sixties when reggae producers like Coxsone Dodd began to let Rastafarians bring their music and their lyrics into what was a booming industry. The fame of Bob Marley brought Rastafari to the world, and as of 2000 there are more than a million Rastafarians worldwide, and a vibrant roots reggae culture.

Marcus Garvey

The Rastas see Marcus Garvey as a second John the Baptist for having prophecised the coming of Selassie when he said, "Look to Africa, for there a king shall be crowned". Marcus Garvey believed in Pan-Africanism, the belief that all black people of the world should join in brotherhood and retake the continent of Africa from the white colonial powers. He promoted his cause of black pride throughout the twenties and thirties, and was particularly successful and influential among lower-class blacks in Jamaica and in rural communities. His ideas have been hugely influential in the development of Rastafari culture, who regarded him as a prophet, Garvey never identified himself with the movement, and wrote a critical article about Selassie for abandoning Ethiopia. The first Rastas had been Garveyites, so Rastafari can be seen as a development of Garveyism. In Rasta mythology it is the Black Star Liner (a ship bought by Garvey to encourage repatriation to Liberia) that takes them home to Africa.

Modern holy books

The Holy Piby written by Robert Athlyi Rogers from Anguilla in 1928, is acclaimed by many Rastafarians as a primary source. Robert Athlyi Rogers, who founded an Afrocentric religion in the US and West Indies in the 1920s. Rogers' religious movement, the Afro Athlican Constructive Church, saw Ethiopians (in the Biblical sense of Black Africans) as the chosen people of God, and proclaimed Marcus Garvey, the prominent Black Nationalist, an apostle. The church preached self-reliance and self-determination for Africans. The Royal Parchment Scroll of Black Supremacy, written during the 1920s by a preacher called Fitz Balintine Pettersburg. It is a surrealistic stream-of-consciousness polemic against the white colonial power structure, a palimpsest of Afrocentric thought, brimming with rage and energy.

Early years

Emperor Haile Selassie was crowned "King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah". Selassie almost immediately gained a following among what came to be known as the Rastafarians. As Ethiopia was the only African country to escape colonialism, and Haile Selassie was the only black leader accepted among the kings and queens of Europe, the early Rastas viewed him with great reverence. During the 1930s, depression wracked Jamaica and Ethiopia alike. Fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini invaded Ethiopia in 1935 (see Second Italo-Abyssinian War), marking one of the major preceding events of World War 2. Haile Selassie, in exile in the United Kingdom, formed the Ethiopian World Federation to unite black support worldwide for Ethiopian sovereignty. Rastafarians looked to their bibles, and saw what they believed to be the fulfilling of many prophecies from the book of Revelations. In 1934 Leonard Howell was the first Rasta to be charged with sedition for refusing loyalty to the King of England George V. The British government would not tolerate Jamaicans loyal to Haile Selassie in what was then their colony. He was the most outstanding of the early leaders of Rastafarianism. He was imprisoned for two years, and then founded the Pinnacle commune. The herb also gained a spiritual significance as a holy sacrament among the above-mentioned Nyahbinghi warriors. In 1954, the Pinnacle commune was destroyed by Jamaican authorities. By the 1950s, Rastafarianism's message of racial pride and unity had unnerved the ruling class of Jamaica, and confrontations between the poor black Rastas and middle-class white police were common. Many Rastas were beaten, and some killed. Others were humiliated by having their sacred dreadlocks cut off. On October 4, 1963, Haile Selassie addressed the United Nations with his famous peace speech from which Bob Marley made the song 'War'.

Visit of Selassie to Jamaica

Haile Selassie visited Jamaica on April 21 1966. Somewhere between one and two hundred thousand Rastafarians from all over Jamaica descended on Kingston airport having heard that the man whom they considered to be God was coming to visit them. They waited at the airport smoking lots of cannabis and playing drums. When Haile Selassie arrived at the airport he refused to get off the aeroplane for an hour until Mortimer Planner, a well known Rasta persuaded him that it was safe to do so. From then on the visit was a success. Rita Marley, Bob Marley's wife converted to the Rastafarian faith after seeing Haile Selassie, and her fervour was what drew Bob Marley into the faith himself. The great significance of this event in the development of the Rastafarian religion should not be underestimated. Having been outcasts in society they gained a temporary respectability for the first time. By making the rasta religion more acceptable it opened the way for the commercialisation of reggae which led to the inexorable spread of Rastafarianism. Because of Haile Selassie's visit, April 21 is celebrated as Grounation Day. It was during this visit that Selassie famously told the Rastafarian community leaders that they should not emigrate to Ethiopia until they had liberated the people of Jamaica. This dictum came to be known as "liberation before repatriation." Selassie then met with several Rasta elders in Addis Ababa and allowed Rastafarians and other people of African descent to settle on his personal land in Shashamane.

Walter Rodney

In 1968, Walter Rodney, an author and professor at the University of the West Indies, published a pamphlet on his experiences with the Rastafarians titled Groundings with My Brothers. It became a benchmark in the Caribbean Black Power movement. Combined with Rastafarianism, both philosophies spread rapidly to various Caribbean nations, including Trinidad and Tobago, Dominica, and Grenada.

Music

Music has long played an integral role in Rastafari, and the connection between the religion and various kinds of music has become well-known due to the international fame of musicians like Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. Nyabinghi music is the most integral form of Rastafarian music. It is played at worship ceremonies called grounations, which including drumming, chanting and dancing along with prayer and smoking of ritual ganja. Nyabinghi probably comes from an East African movement from the 1850s to the 1950s that was led by women who militarily opposed European imperialism. This form of nyabinghi was centered around Muhumusa, a healing woman from Uganda who organized resistance against German colonialists. The British later led efforts against nyabinghi, classifying it as witchcraft through the Witchcraft Ordinance of 1912. In Jamaica, nyabinghi was appropriated for similar anti-colonial efforts, and is often danced to invoke the power of Jah against an oppressor. The drum is a symbol of the Africanness of Rastafarianism, and some sects of the religion believe that Jah's spirit or divine energy is present in the drum. African music survived slavery because many slaveowners encouraged it as a method of keeping morale high. Afro-Caribbean music arose with the influx of influences from the native peoples of Jamaica, as well as the European slaveowners. Another form of Rastafarian music is called burru drumming, which was first played in the Parish of Clarendon, Jamaica, and then in West Kingston. Burru was later introduced to the burgeoning Rasta community in Kingston. Maroons, or communities of escaped slaves, kept purer African musical traditions alive in the interior of Jamaica, and were also founders of Rastafarianism.

Popularization and recording

The first recording of Rastafarian music was perhaps Count Ossie, followed by the 1950s recording of various forms of burru, Pocomania and other Jamaican religions. in 1953, Ossie introduced akete drums to Rastafarian communities in West Kingston, using styles and rhythms adapted from burru. Ossie then recorded with the Fokes Brothers on "Oh Carolina", a song produced by Prince Buster. "Oh Carolina" was the first popular song from Jamaica, and the same recording session produced the ska hits "They Got to Go" and "Thirty Pieces of Silver". Ossie later became well-known for other recordings (with his band, The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari), especially 1974's Grounation, which featured roots percussion and musical styles.

Reggae

During the 1970s, Rastafari mushroomed in popularity internationally, largely due to the fame of Bob Marley, who incorporated nyabinghi and Rastafarian chanting into his music. Songs like "Rastaman Chant" led to the religion and reggae music being seen as closely intertwined in the consciousness of audiences across the world, especially among oppressed and poor groups of African Americans and Native Americans, First Nations Canadians, Australian Aborigines and New Zealand Maori, and throughout most of Africa. Reggae was born from poor blacks in Trenchtown, the main ghetto of Kingston, Jamaica, who listened to radio stations from the United States. Jamaican musicians, many of them being Rastas, soon blended traditional Jamaican folk music, American R&B and jazz into ska, which was to form reggae under the influence of soul. Reggae began entering the international consciousness in the early 1970s. Many orthodox Rastas refuse reggae as a form of commercial music and "sell-out to Babylon." Reggae and ska are not to be confused with the sacred music of the Rastafarians, called burru or nyahbinghi drumming. Other reggae musicians with strong Rastafarian elements in their music include Ras Michael, Prince Lincoln Thompson, Bunny Wailer Prince Far I, Israel Vibration and literally hundreds more.