Rasta Lessons: Dreadlocks

I'm going to try to compile different explanations for dreadlocks from the vault of Asher's thoughts. :)

In my opinion - there seems to be more good reasons for wearing dreadlocks than not.

Popularized by the Rastafarian movement, dreadlocks are associated with ganja culture and rebellion. However, dreadlocks have been worn long before the "Dreads" from Jamaica. Dreadlocks have been found worn by Egyptian mummies. Dreads are worn by Nazerites in Judaism. It is also said that James, the brother of Jesus wore dreadlocks down to his ankles. It is possible that dreadlocks were worn by early Christians. Dreadlocks are worn by Sathus in Hinduism as well as by Coptic Christians. Closer to the Rastas heart, dreadlocks were worn by the soldiers in Kenya during the Mau Mau uprising (1952-1960). This uprising involved Kenyan ethnic groups rebelling against colonial rule. To the Rastas, dreadlocks are supported by the biblical reference to Samson.

Rastafarianism started as a movement in the 1930's but dreads didn't gain mass appeal until about the 1950's. The attitude behind it was that (among other things) the colonial powers want the people to look how they want people to look. But as we rebel against the colonial powers we will not look how they want us to look. We will be dreadful to look upon. Thus, dreadlocks.
Dreadlocks also symbolize the lion's mane. Associations with the lion draw reference to Haile Selassie I as the conquering lion of Judah. Lions I believe also bring imagery of the mother continent to the mental foreground. Dreads also represent roots. Rastafarians have a strong sense of history and there is a draw to restore things like culture to the way it was before colonialism. This kind of thinking is roots thinking.

Dreadlocks can be an identifier in that the longer they are the longer you have belonged to the faith. You can also tell alot by the color of the locks. Locks will naturally turn brown or even grey. Some people who wear dread locks are called Natty Dreads because they dye their locks black to make them look nice. Natty Dreads are most likely to be wearing dreads for fashion. Natty is a word that means 'pretty'.

On the reverse side - according to a popular Morgan Heritage song - "You don't haffi be dread to be Rasta" You don't need to wear locks to live a Rasta lifestyle.

Rasta Lesson: Archibald Dunkley, Joseph Hibbert, Robert Hinds

This post is a combined post of three early Rastafari leaders because there is not a great deal of literature out there about any one of them in particular. This post is just to cover the ground level of early rastafarian leaders. These three men, Dunkley, Hibbert and Hinds were along the same lines as the more prominent early rasta leader, Leonard Howell. All four began preaching independently of each other in the slums of West Kingston, Jamaica where they discovered each other and a movement was born. 

Dunkley was a Jamaican seaman who studied the Bible for 2 years before concluding that Selassie was the messiah about which Marcus Garvey had prophesied. They all subscribed to the Garvey ideas of Back to Africa and of an Ethiopianism philosophy. Dunkley had much prestige along with Howell and they were attributed with divine characteristics. They were arrested around the same time and Dunkley was also committed to an asylum later in life. Dunkley along with Hibbert may be responsible for some of the small strains of mysticism in rastafarianism. They had both spent time in the Masonic Lodge. More specifically the Ancient Mystic Order of Ethiopia. 

While Hinds began preaching with Howell it is said that after a time he went his own separate way. It's hard to find information on him specifically yet he is always lumped together with the other early rastafarian leaders.

In any case these men spread the message that Garvey started and Howell preached. They were a kind of group of 'apostles' for the early rastafarian church. 

Rasta Lessons: Leonard Howell

Leonard Howell 1898-1981

Putatively founded the Rastafarian movement - he is considered the "First Rasta" and in some circles is considered as part of the Rasta Trinity along with Marcus Garvey and Haile Selassie I. Howell started preaching in 1933 that the newly crowned Ras Tafari Makonnen as Emporer Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia was God come to earth. He was the first to make this claim. Howell wrote "The Promised Key"  which is a codification of his teachings and a foundation on which early Rastafarianism was founded.

Howell had 6 foundations of Rastafari that he preached.

1. Opposition to the wickedness (oppressive structures summed up in the term "Babylon")

2. Dignity of the Black race (along with Marcus Garvey)

3. God's revenge on the wicked for their wickedness

4. The negation, persecution and humiliation of the government and legal bodies of wicked world

5. Preparation to return to Africa (repatriation)

6. Acknowledgement of Emperor Haile Selassie I as the Supreme Being and the only ruler of the Black people.

Howell was obviously inspired by Garvey's "Africa for the Africans" as well as reading the Bible through African lenses. Howell was so set on repatriation and Selassie that he would sell pictures of Selassie and tell people that they were passports to Africa. Garvey looked down on this as a Methodist. 

Howell's philosophy was of self-reliance leading to self-responsibility. The solution to the Black problems needed to come from the Black people. Howell was arrested and imprisoned for his ideas. Charged with sedition (Jamaica was still under colonial rule) Howell was imprisoned for 2 years but his message was spread. Howell was relentless in his criticism of the government.

Once released Howell found recluse in the hills of Jamaica and founded a Rasta community called Pinnacle. There he lived in community with thousands of his followers. Pinnacle was a safe place from the oppression of the colonial society. Pinnacle was ransacked by the government in 1954 - they were tired of the large amounts of marijuana being cultivated there. The Rastafarians returned to the urban ghettos of Jamaica where their poverty helped strengthen their belief in the Rasta ideology. 

It's interesting to note by 1933 the trademark dreadlocks have still not developed in the rastafarian ideology. Howell was a 'dapper' gentleman wearing three piece suits and a beard like Haile Selassie I. Dreadlocks will start to form during the Italo-Ethiopian War starting in 1935. Dreadlocks and other elements of the Rasta lifestyle hadn't really caught on until the early 1950's during a reformation of Howell's ideas.

Howell most likely died a dissident's death in a mental institution.

Rasta Lessons: Marcus Garvey

My goal here is to feature certain profiles of influential people that precipitated the rastafarian movement. Once we've talked about the different profiles we can tie it all together in the end.

Marcus Garvey: 1887 - 1940

Garvey was a Jamaican who was influential in advancing the idea of Pan-Africanism. Pan-Africanism is a philosophy based on the concept of the unity of the African race in Africa and the Diaspora. Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL). Garvey's intentions were noble in that he wanted the colonial powers to leave Africa, the Caribbean and other places where colonialism still existed at the expense of African descendants. He wanted African and Caribbean nations to rise up to the level of the first world countries and excel as nations. He conceived of a unifying of African countries into a United States of Africa, based on the same idea that governs the United States of America. His concept of unity was fierce, "Our unity must know no clime, boundary or nationality... let us hold together under all climes and in every country..." (taken from an editorial in the Negro World entitled "African fundamentalism").  Garvey was a bit of a mixed bag in that while he wanted independence from colonial systems where Africans are subservient to the colonizers, he wanted to adopt the structure once free because the systems have proven to work well. 

Marcus Garvey was raised as a Methodist Christian and later declared himself as non-denominational. He advocated a reading of scripture that challenged the Eurocentric interpretation of scripture say in effect, "we will read the scriptures through the lenses of Ethiopia". His philosophy was that just as God is white to the Europeans, necessarily God is Black to the Africans. 

Marcus Garvey did not accept the assertion that the newly coronated king of Ethiopia Haile Selassie I was the messiah. Selassie's divinity was asserted by Leonard Howell. Garvey was, however, inspired by the coronation because to him it represented a rising up of an African nation to the world stage. This was his dream coming to fruition and I'm sure as other African and Caribbean countries came to independence, self-rule and prosperity he would rally around their leader as well. In his Jamaican newspaper, The Blackman, Garvey asserts his support but is often taken out of context in declaring Selassie as the messiah with this phrase, "The Psalmist prophesied that Princes would come out of Egypt and Ethiopia would stretch forth her hands unto God. We no doubt that the time is now come. Ethiopia is now really stretching forth her hands. The great kingdom of the East has been hidden for many centuries, but gradually she is rising to take a leading place in the world and it is for us of the Negro race to assist in every way to hold up the hand of Emperor Ras Tafari."

My commentary on the full text and this last paragraph was that Garvey was simply excited about what Selassie represented and his potential. Ras Tafari was crowned king in 1930 and took on his name of Haile Selassie I

By 1937 the dream was over. Garvey was critical of Selassie all along but by this time as a result of the Italo-Ethiopian war. The Italo-Ethiopian war had begun in 1935 and was Mussolini's attempt at claiming more land for Italy to expand their empire. Italy controlled neighboring Eritrea and Somaliland and Ethiopia was one of the few independent African countries at the time and was ripe for imperialist invasion. Italy succeeded in defeating Ethiopia and it was annexed into the empire of Italian East Africa. Garvey was disgusted. His criticisms stabbed at Selassie that he was not prepared and that he resorted to fasting and praying instead of equipping his armies. Ethiopia would later be liberated by the East African Campaign in World War II. 

Garveyites protested the war in Ethiopia from the start and held demonstrations in Jamaica and the US. under the pan-africanist philosophy many Jamaicans wanted to go fight with Ethiopia against Italy. Jamaica was still an English colony at the time however and England looked down on the Jamaicans seeming willingness to serve two masters.

One of Garvey's crowning ambitions and disasters was the incorporation of the Black Star Line shipping company. Repatriation was a strong ideal for Garvey and he believed that just as Africans were plucked off the continent, some day all Africans will return to the continent to help build the empire. Black Star Line was repatriation in the most real sense and was incorporated to eventually take everyone back to Africa. (This is a different approach than some early Rastafarian leaders who after a rousing demonstration, marched to the sea expecting ships to materialize and take them back to Africa)

In short, the ships bought by the company were in poor condition and bought for more than they were worth. There was also corruption in the management and sabotage and infiltration by the US Bureau of Investigation (the forerunner to the FBI). 

Through all this - what Garvey contributed to what would become the Rastafarian movement was a philosophical and ideological approach to thinking of African and those in the diaspora as people who are overdue to become great. He advocated for Black Supremacy as well as the Back to Africa movement which were embraced by the Rastafarians who still consider Ethiopia as an ancestral and metaphorical home. He also contributed the concept of reading the Bible as an African and what it means to look at it through different lenses. As a person living during colonialism he advocated for decolonization which is still an active part of the Rastafarian mentality. 

At the same time Garvey differed from the Rastafarians, particularly on his loyalty to Christian beliefs and rejecting Selassie as the messiah. He also rejected the concept of using marijuana as a sacrament. He saw it as destructive and represented an ungluing of society. 

Nonetheless, Marcus Garvey is hailed as a prophet by the Rastafarians and is immortalized in reggae music especially by Burning Spear (a long time Garvey-ite). Garvey has been called "John the Baptist" because at one point he pointed to Africa for the messiah to come. I have also heard of an obscure rastafarian trinity that consists of Selassie, Marcus Garvey, and Leonard Howell. Garvey himself never identified with the Rastfarian movement but provided the ideological framework for its existence.

Garvey died in June 1940 of two strokes after putatively reading a mistaken and negative obituary of himself in the Chicago Defender. He was buried in London and was later exhumed and buried in Jamaica whereupon he was declared Jamaica's first national hero.