Talk:Rastafari

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Discussion for: Rastafari • View • Links • Related changes

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Page scope

The page covers Rastafari as a movement in outline and, in detail, its relation to cannabis: the herb in belief and scripture, its use in reasoning and Nyabinghi ceremonies, the Indian roots of Jamaican ganja, Jamaica's ganja laws from 1913 to 2015 as they touched the movement, and the sacramental question before courts and legislatures elsewhere. Cannabis in Rastafari culture redirects to its section on belief. Jamaica's drug law in general is covered on Jamaica; Rastafari growing and trade in Trinidad on Trinidad and Tobago; the settlement in Ethiopia on Shashamane; and the South African, Namibian and Kenyan cases on those countries' pages.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and unresolved readings here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Sources

Smith, Augier and Nettleford (1960), The Ras Tafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica, is a survey made over two weeks by three members of staff of the University College of the West Indies at the request of leading brethren, addressed to the Premier. It is the oldest account of ganja in Rastafari belief and of the Pinnacle community. Page numbers are those printed in the report.
Rubin and Comitas (1975), Ganja in Jamaica, and Comitas (1975) in Cannabis and Culture rest on fieldwork in 1970–1972. They are the source for the Indian roots of the ganja complex and for the history of Jamaican ganja law to 1972.
The National Commission on Ganja (2001) recorded the testimony of the Church of Haile Selassie I and of Nyabinghi elders from Pitfour. The web transcription of the report has no printed page numbers; citations to it give the chapter.
Pretorius (2006) is a theological synthesis that draws on Erskine (2005), Edmonds (2003), Owens (1976) and Bilby (2000) for the verses, the prayers and the pipes.
Hamid (2002) rests on fieldwork in Trinidad in 1975–1979; Gomes (2011) on fieldwork at Shashamane; Dunkley (2013) on newspapers of the period and earlier studies of Howell's suppression.
Events since 2015 in Jamaica and the Caribbean are cited to the statutes, the Barbados parliament's bill history and newspaper reports; the court cases to the judgments, except R v Taylor (a law report in the Law Society Gazette), the St Kitts judgment of 2019 (a press report) and United States v. Bauer, which is cited through the Ninth Circuit's account of it in Guerrero (2002).

Pinnacle

The 1960 survey gives more than 800 residents and Dunkley (2013) 700.
For the raid of 1941 the survey gives about 70 arrests and 28 prison sentences, and Dunkley writes that Howell was sentenced with 27 of his followers. For 1954 the survey gives 163 arrests; Dunkley, citing Lee (2003), gives 110 guilty verdicts for possession.
The survey describes ganja as Pinnacle's cash crop; Dunkley reports that Howell was attacked for his stand on its cultivation and on its use as a sacrament. Neither quotes Howell on the sacrament.

Dates of the Jamaican laws

Rubin and Comitas date the first measure to 1913 (a ganja clause added when the colony ratified the International Opium Convention) and the Dangerous Drugs Law to 1924, with later amendments up to 1972. Dunkley (2013) writes that the marijuana ban was introduced by an amendment to the Dangerous Drugs Act in 1948; the table in Rubin and Comitas lists the amendments of 1948 and 1954 together, as increasing the penalties and extending the law to all forms of possession and sale. The text of the 1913 law itself is not cited.

Scripture

The verse lists differ. In 1960 users named Genesis 8, Psalm 18 and Revelation 22; Pretorius (2006) lists Genesis 1:29, Genesis 3:18, Exodus 10:12, Proverbs 15:17, Psalm 104:14, Revelation 22:2 and Psalm 18:8.
Hamid (2002, p. 87) writes that for the San Fernando Rastafari the herb was given by Jah for the "healing of nations", "as recorded in the Book of Genesis"; the phrase is from Revelation 22:2.

Origin of the sacred status

The National Commission on Ganja (2001) called the tradition of giving ganja sacred status "of Indian derivation". Rubin and Comitas (1975) traced the Jamaican ganja complex to the indentured Indians. Comitas (1975) reported that some users of the 1970s held Africa to be the plant's original home. Pretorius (2006) found it "not clear" why the movement adopted ganja and reports, from Barrett (1977), the theory that it was smoked to defy colonial control.

Shashamane

The 1960 survey prints an undated letter announcing the grant of 500 acres through the Ethiopian World Federation; Gomes (2011) places the grant in the 1950s and Chawane (2012) in 1948.

Official and colonial wording

The words of the 1913 Daily Gleaner editorial and of Legislative Council members are those reported by Rubin and Comitas, and are quoted as theirs.
The 1960 survey's own judgements on ganja and violence, and its account of Howell's claims to divinity, are its authors'. Its value is as a witness to what brethren told its authors and to dated events.