50 Fun Facts About Rastafari

Which short name for God, printed once in the King James Bible, do Rastafari use in prayer and song?

Jah is a shortened form of Jehovah, and Rastas speak of knowing him rather than believing in him, since they hold that God lives within each person.

Which biblical city's name do Rastafari give to Western society and to the police who serve it?

Babylon was chosen because the Israelites were held captive there in the 6th century BCE, an exile Rastas compare to that of the African diaspora.

Which biblical figure's uncut hair do Rastafari cite when calling dreadlocks a sign of strength?

Samson is the model, and Rastas also cite the Book of Numbers, treating dreadlocks as a mark of their covenant with God and a rejection of conventional grooming.

Which animal, a symbol of Ethiopia's emperors, appears on Rastafari flags of red, gold and green?

The Lion of Judah was a hereditary title of Ethiopia's emperors and sat on the country's flag from 1897 to 1974. Some Rastas style their dreadlocks after its mane.

Which phrase do Rastafari say in place of 'we', since they hold that God lives within every person?

I and I replaces 'we' because Rastas treat the self as divine, and the same thinking turns 'receive' into 'I-ceive' and 'Amen' into 'I-men'.

Which European country invaded Ethiopia in the 1930s, forcing Haile Selassie into years of exile?

Italy occupied the country from 1936 until Allied forces drove its troops out in 1941, and many Rastas read the emperor's return to his throne as biblical prophecy fulfilled.

What do Rastafari call their natural diet, which typically avoids added salt, sugar and additives?

Ital comes from the word 'vital' with the first letter dropped, and most versions of the diet are strictly vegetarian.

Which Bob Marley album, recorded in London after a 1976 shooting, did Time name best of the century?

Exodus stayed on the British album chart for 56 consecutive weeks and carried the hits Jamming, Waiting in Vain and Three Little Birds.

Which nickname, inspired by hairstyle, do Rastafari commonly use for people outside their faith?

Baldheads are non-Rastas, while a cleanface is a Rasta without dreadlocks and a nubbie is a newcomer who has only just started to grow them.

Which Rastafari holy day, held each 21 April, marks Haile Selassie's 1966 arrival in Jamaica?

Grounation Day recalls a crowd so vast that the emperor stayed aboard his plane until a Rastafari leader calmed the people. He then declined to walk on the red carpet.

In which English city did Haile Selassie spend his 1936–41 exile, living at Fairfield House?

Bath was the emperor's home in exile, and after returning to his throne he gave Fairfield House to the city as a residence for the aged.

In which capital was Haile Selassie crowned emperor in 1930, an event early Rastas read as prophecy?

Addis Ababa staged the coronation at its Cathedral of St. George before royals and dignitaries from around the world, including a son of Britain's King George V.

What does the throne name Haile Selassie, adopted by Tafari Makonnen in 1930, mean in English?

Power of the Trinity is the meaning in Ge'ez, the old church language of Ethiopia, and the phrase had long been his baptismal name.

Which Jamaican preacher, known as the First Rasta, began proclaiming Haile Selassie divine in 1933?

Leonard Howell was jailed for two years for his preaching, yet the movement kept growing, and his followers knew him as Gangunguru Maragh, or simply The Gong.

Which Jamaican parish, called the Garden Parish, was the birthplace of Marcus Garvey and Bob Marley?

Saint Ann is also where Marley was buried, in a chapel near his Nine Mile birthplace, with his red Gibson guitar and a Bible open at Psalm 23.

Which shipping company did Marcus Garvey launch in 1919 as part of his Back-to-Africa campaign?

The Black Star Line was meant to carry goods and passengers for the cause but folded within a few years, undermined in part by infiltration from federal agents.

Which biblical name for an idealised Jerusalem do Rastafari apply to Ethiopia or to all of Africa?

Zion is the ideal Rastas aspire to, and while early believers pressed for a physical return to Africa, some use the word for Jamaica or for a state of mind.

Which word from a verse in John's Gospel do Rastafari use for the separate branches of their faith?

Mansions echoes the saying that a father's house has many of them, and splitting into several with no single leader made the early movement harder to suppress.

Which knitted cap, often red, gold and green, do many Rastafari wear over their dreadlocks?

A tam, also called a rastacap, is a practical way to keep dreadlocks contained and protected, and reggae carried the look far beyond the faith.

Which branch of Rastafari, regarded as the oldest, is named after a legendary queen of East Africa?

Nyabinghi also names the faith's great gatherings, which can run for three to seven days of drumming, chanting and dancing around bonfires at night.

What do members of Rastafari's Bobo Ashanti branch wear over their dreadlocks, along with robes?

Turbans and robes set the Bobo Ashanti apart. Emanuel Charles Edwards founded the group in 1958, and its commune at Bull Bay became a refuge offering free shelter and food.

By what personal detail does Rastafari's Twelve Tribes of Israel branch assign each member a tribe?

Birth month decides the tribe, and each one is linked to a colour and a part of the body. Vernon Carrington, known to followers as Prophet Gad, founded the group in 1968.

Which word do Rastafari use for their whole way of living, from diet and hair to daily conduct?

Livity is the Rasta ideal of righteous living close to nature, which for many includes eating food grown organically and leaving their hair uncut.

What do Rastafari call the water pipe passed counter-clockwise around the circle at gatherings?

A chalice cools the smoke through water, while Rastas who roll the herb into a large cigarette call it a spliff and light it only once a prayer is finished.

What do Rastafari call the group discussion of faith and daily events that is central to gatherings?

Reasoning is meant to be non-combative: each speaker pushes the talk further until the whole group has gained insight, sharing what came to them in meditation and dreams.

Which word do Rastafari commonly use in place of 'oppression'?

Downpression is preferred because oppression bears down on people rather than lifting them up; likewise 'dedicate', with its echo of 'dead', becomes 'livicate'.

Which word ending makes many Rastafari reject a common name for their faith, as implying doctrine?

The -ism in 'Rastafarianism' suggests an organised creed, and many believers also dislike the labels 'movement' and 'religion', preferring to speak of a way of life.

Which book of the Bible sets out the dietary laws that lead most Rastafari to avoid pork?

Leviticus guides most Rastas' plates, and many go further by giving up meat altogether, a habit mocked in Ghana with the gibe that they eat like sheep and goats.

In which Jamaican city did street preachers first proclaim Haile Selassie the returned Christ?

Kingston was where the message began, and it spread fastest among poor communities that had been hit hard by the Great Depression.

Which body did Haile Selassie address in Geneva in 1936, pleading his invaded country's case?

The League of Nations had admitted his country in 1923, yet its promise of collective security proved useless, and the speech made him an icon for anti-fascists worldwide.

Which reggae star made the 1976 album Legalize It, a call to decriminalise the Rastafari sacrament?

Peter Tosh wrote the title track partly in answer to his own treatment by Jamaican police, and the song was banned when it came out on the island in 1975.

Which Bob Marley song draws its words from a 1963 speech by Haile Selassie to the United Nations?

War first appeared in 1976 on Rastaman Vibration, Marley's only album to reach the American top ten, and Rastas cite the same speech in support of racial acceptance.

Which Christian festival do Rastafari mark on 7 January, following Ethiopia's church calendar?

Christmas falls on 7 January in Ethiopia, and Rastas also gather for the Ethiopian New Year on 11 September and for the emperor's birthday on 23 July.

Which country's indentured workers brought cannabis to Jamaica, a possible root of Rastafari herb use?

India sent indentured workers to the island until 1917, and the matted hair of Hindu holy men is one suggested model for dreadlocks too.

Which singer of the I Threes embraced Rastafari after seeing Haile Selassie's motorcade in 1966?

Rita Marley said she saw a stigma, a mark like the wounds of Christ, on the emperor's hand as he waved to the crowd, and was instantly convinced of his divinity.

Which Rastafari commune, founded in Saint Catherine around 1940, did police raid again and again?

Pinnacle took its name from its high hilltop site and aimed to be self-sufficient. When it was finally broken up, its residents scattered and carried the faith across the island.

Which charge did Jamaica's rulers bring in 1934 against a preacher urging loyalty to Haile Selassie?

Sedition was the charge because he told crowds they owed allegiance to Ethiopia's emperor rather than to King George V, yet the movement kept growing while he sat in prison.

Which organisation did Marcus Garvey found in Jamaica in 1914 to advance people of African descent?

The UNIA, short for Universal Negro Improvement Association, flew Garvey's red, black and green Pan-African flag, colours that Rastas often combine with those of Ethiopia.

In which Ethiopian town did Haile Selassie grant land where a Rastafari settler community took root?

Shashamane's Rasta community once reached about 2,000 people before shrinking to a few hundred, after a later Marxist government confiscated much of the land.

Which Rasta drummer's band played on the 1960 hit Oh Carolina, bringing ritual hand drumming to pop?

Count Ossie led a Rasta camp near Wareika Hill where many of the island's musicians first learned about the faith, and the record's producer went there to recruit his drummers.

Which reggae act, named after a Kenyan military honour, called its 1975 album Marcus Garvey?

Burning Spear was an award given by Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's first president, and the album's immediate success won the group a deal with Island Records.

Which junta overthrew Haile Selassie in 1974 and abolished Ethiopia's monarchy a year later?

The Derg took its name from a word for committee. The emperor's body, buried beneath his palace, lay undiscovered until 1992, which fed a Rasta belief that he had never died.

Which 14th-century epic, read by many Rastafari, tells how the Ark of the Covenant reached Ethiopia?

The Kebra Nagast, or Glory of the Kings, was written in Ge'ez and traces Ethiopia's emperors to Menelik I, with whom the Ark is said to have left Jerusalem.

Which Rasta teacher, a friend of Bob Marley, calmed the crowd when Haile Selassie landed in Jamaica?

Mortimer Planno was born in Cuba and raised in Jamaica, and for years afterward he handed out enlarged photographs of himself beside the emperor on the aircraft steps.

Which 1920s text by Robert Athlyi Rogers, nicknamed the Black Man's Bible, shaped early Rastafari?

The Holy Piby presents Ethiopians, meaning all Africans, as God's chosen people, and Rogers wrote it for a church of his own that preached self-reliance.

By what name do Rastafari remember the 1963 Coral Gardens crackdown by Jamaican police?

Bad Friday followed a violent clash at a Montego Bay petrol station, and in 2017 Jamaica's government formally apologised for what its forces had done.

In Rastafari ritual drumming, which small high-pitched drum improvises over the bass and funde?

The repeater, also called the kete, has a tighter head than the funde and is seen as the carrier of spirit, so only one player solos on it at a time.

Which Guyanese historian lectured to Jamaica's Rastafari in 1968 and was barred from the island?

Walter Rodney's ban set off protests by students and the urban poor that grew into riots, and he published the talks as The Groundings with My Brothers.

Which Jamaican prime minister courted Rasta voters with a staff he said Haile Selassie gave him?

Michael Manley called the staff his Rod of Correction and took on the biblical persona of Joshua, and he described Rastas as a beautiful and remarkable people.

In which Ethiopian language do many Rastafari believe the Bible was first written, carved on stone?

Amharic is the tongue many Rastas hold the scriptures began in, a belief at odds with scholarship, and they read the text as an authentic account of African history.