Retrieved from: http://www.cifas.us/smith/books.html Title: The Ras Tafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica Author(s): M.G. Smith (With R. Augier and R. M. Nettleford). Published by: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University College of the West Indies, 1960. 54p. Reprinted in: Reprinted in 1968, and in Caribbean Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 3, (September 1967), pp. 3-29; and vol. 13, no. 4 (December 1967), pp. 3-14.

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF THE WEST INDIES

THE RAS TAFARI MOVEMENT IN KINGSTON, JAMAICA.

By
M. G. Smith Roy Au/;ier Rex Nettleford

INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH

1960

CONTENTS Foreword Chapter I II III Introduction History of the Movement Recent Developments

7

8
15

IV The Doctrines of the Movement V The Movement's Current Organisation VI VII What Ras Tafari Brethren Want Summary of Recommendations

22

28
33

38

Appendices I II Letter: Land Grant Letters: Ethiopian Orthodox Church
39

41
43

III Niyabingi Men
IV The Creed of a Ras Tafari Man

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20th July, 1960.

My dear Premier, At the request of some prominent members of the Ras Tafari brethren, three members of the U.C.W.I. staff, Roy Augier, Rex Nettleford, and M. G. Smith, spent every day of two weeks with Ras Tafari brethren, making a survey of the movement, its organisation and its aspirations. They have produced a report, which I enclose herewith. The team has made a number of recommendations, which require urgent consideration. The movement is large, and in a state of great unrest. Its problems require priority treatment. Though the movement has no single leader, or group of leaders, it is willing to produce a small group of prominent representatives to discuss with the Government the recommendations contained in this report. I very much hope that you may be able to arrange such a meeting at the earliest possible opportunity. Yours sincerely, (Sgd.) W. A. Lewis Principal. Hon. N. W. Manley

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION The aim of this study is to present a brief account of the growth, doctrines, organisation, aspirations, needs and conditions of the Ras Tafari movement in Jamaica, especially in Kingston, the capital. The data presented here were collected during a rapid survey among the Ras Tafari brethren of Kingston during the fortnight beginning on July 4th 1960. This survey arose out of letters written to the Principal of the U.C.W.I., Professor Arthur Lewis, and to the Resident Tutor, Extra-Mural Studies, Mr. Rex Nettleford, by members of the Ras Tafari brethren living in Kingston. These letters asked the College to assist the brethren in various ways, especially in the educational field, and by publiCising the truth about the brethren and their doctrine. In view of these diverse requests, a meeting was arranged at which Professor Lewis discussed the appeals with a number of brethren and offered to send a team of three faculty members to work among them for a fortnight in order to determine the predominant needs of the brethren, and to formulate a programme of action. Mr. Horace Gordon of the Jamaica Social Welfare Commission, who helped to arrange this meeting, acted as Chairman. By kind permission of the Rev. M. E. W. Sawyers, Chairman of the Jones Town Government School, the discussion took place there on Monday 4th July from 8.30 to 11.00 p.m. The assembly having declared their support for the College survey, it began the next morning.
This is not the first occasion on which the University College of the West Indies has been involved in a study of the Ras Tafari movement. In 1953 Professor George Eaton Simpson of Oberlin College, Ohio, U.S.A. carried out a field study among four Ras Tafari groups in Kingston under the sponsorship of the Institute of Social and Economic Research, U.C.W.I. In 1955 Professor Simpson published his findings in two articles, "The Ras Tafari Movement in Jamaica: A Study of Race and Class Conflict" (Social Forces, vol. 34, No.2), and "Political Cultism in West Kingston" (Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 4, No.2). The second of these articles which was published by the U.C.W.I. is the more informative; but both essays concentrate on a thematic treatment of Ras Tafari doctrine, descriptions of street meetings and worship, paying little attention to the history, organisation or background of the movement. As we shall see, the nature of the cult has changed quite significantly since 1953, and Professor Simpson's account has to be brought up to date. Simpson's early work enabled the present survey to proceed far more rapidly and effectively than would have been poSSible otherwise.

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CHAPTER II HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT During the 1920's, Jamaica knew two prophets. One of them, a man called Bedward, attempted to fly to heaven, was tried and placed in the mental hospital as a lunatic, dying there. Bedward left behind him a settlement at August Town near the University College. The other, and by far the more important prophet, was Marcus Garvey, who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association in the United States, proclaimed black nationalism, and preached "Africa for the Africans - at home and abroad": "One God, one aim, one destiny." Garvey sought to found a black state in Africa to which Negroes from the Western world would be transported, and this was one of the objects of the Black Star Line. This Line was a failure, but Garvey's message was a success, and will continue to attract the support of black peoples for generations to come. Only recently, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah placed Garvey's symbol of the Black Star Line in the centre of the Ghana flag. The Garvey message gave American Negroes a racial pride and strength they sorely needed. Garvey's tradition continues among the Negroes of Chicago, New York and similar Northern cities. In 1927 Marcus Garvey was deported from the United States and returncd to his homeland, Jamaica, preaching his doctrine of black racial pride and return to Africa. It seemed that he was a prophet without honour in his own country. The whites and browns disliked the doctrine. The blacks found it rather onerous, for Garvey emphasised the virtues of thrift, hard work, perseverance and foreSight, and relied on his followers to pay their way to Africa by their own efforts. Although he kept his headquarters in Jamaica until 1935, he made little headway here. In 1929 he was imprisoned briefly for contempt of court. He was elected to the KS.A.C. in February 1930, but failed to win a seat in the Legislative Council. In 1935 he left Jamaica for England where he died in 1940. The Jamaica to which Garvey returned must have seemed to him not very different in its racial organisation from the American areas with which he was familiar. Garvey is said to have told his people to "Look to Africa, when a black king shall be crowned, for the day of deliverance is near." He is also said to have prophesied that his people would be redeemed and returned to Africa in the 1960's, and according to some people, in 1960. Truth has two levels in social affairs. There are actual events, and there are statements about actual events. Statements believed to be true are often sociologically more important than those which are true. What people believe or assert emphatically, represents a social force which cannot be disposed of merely by denial. For the Ras Tafari brethren today, Garvey is a major prophet, 8

but his relationship with the founders of the Ras Tafari movement between 1930 and 1935 remains obscure. In November 1930, Ras Tafari was crowned as the Emperor Haile Sellassie, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and the conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah. The Daily Gleaner featured this coronation on the front page of its issue of November 11th 1930. Some Jamaicans of a Garveyite persuasion say that they then began to consult their Bibles. Could this be he of whom Garvey spoke? A number of texts showed that it was. Revelation 5:2,5 - "And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, 'Who is worthy to open the Book, and to loose the seals thereof? . . And one of the elders saith unto me, 'Weep not: behold, the Lion of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the Book and to loose the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth." Later, when the Italians invaded Ethiopia, Revelation 19:19 was fulfilled - "And I saw the Beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, against his army." In 1941, with the Emperor's return to Ethiopia, the succeeding verse was fulfilled - "And the Beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had the mark of the Beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone." The doctrine that Ras Tafari, known to the world as the Emperor Haile Sellassie I of Ethiopia, is the Living God, was developed by several persons independently. Of these Mr. Leonard P. Howell is genuinely regarded as being the first to preach the divinity of Ras Tafari in Kingston. Howell is said to have fought against King Prempeh of Ashanti (1896), and claimed to speak an African language. 'The Promised Key', a basic Ras Tafari text, published in Accra, Ghana around 1930, shows clear evidence of Jamaican authorship. (Jamaica Times 28th May 1938). Howell also spent several years in the northeastern U.S., where he came into contact with black and white racism. Another early preacher was Mr. Joseph Nathaniel Hibbert. Mr. Hibbert was born in Jamaica in 1894, but went with his adopted father to Costa Rica in 1911, returning to Jamaica in 1931. In Costa Rica Mr. Hibbert had leased 28 acres, which he put in bananas. In 1924 he had joined the Ancient Mystic Order of Ethiopia, a Masonic society the constitution of which was revised in 1888, and which became incorporated in 1928 in Panama. Mr. Hibbert became a Master Mason of this Order, and, returning to Jamaica, began to preach Haile Sellassie as the King of Kings, the returned Messiah and the Redeemer of Israel. This was at Benoah District, St. Andrew, from whence he moved to Kingston to find Howell already preaching Ras Tafari as God at the Redemption Market. Mr. H. Archibald Dunkley is another man who may claim to have brought the doctrine to Jamaica. Mr. Dunkley was a Jamaican seaman on the Atlantic Fruit Company's boats, and finally quit the sea on the 8th December 1930, when he landed at Port Antonio off the s.s. 'St. Mary'. Coming to Kingston,

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Dunkley studied the Bible for two-and-a-half years on his own, to determine whether Haile Sellassie was the Messiah whom Garvey had prophesied. Ezekiel 30, I Timothy 6, Revelation 17 and 19 and Isaiah 43 finally convinced him. In 1933 Dunkley opened his Mission, preaching Ras Tafari as the King of Kings, the Root of David, the Son of the living God, but not the Father Himself. Other early preachers include Robert Hinds, who joined Howell, and Altamont Read who turned his following over to one Mr. Johnson when he became Mr. N. W. Manley's bodyguard about 1940. Another somewhat more secular stream was meanwhile developing on the Kingston Dungle. There, Messrs. Paul Edington, Vernal Davis, Ferdinand Ricketts and others had been in the habit of discussing Garvey's doctrines and the social conditions in Jamaica which justified them. The emphasis of this group was on social reform in Jamaica as well as migration to Mrica. Remembering Garvey's words - that when a king is crowned in Mrica the time is near - they lent a willing ear to the doctrines preached by Howell, Hibbert and Dunkley independently, and some time in 1934, under the influence of Robert Hinds, this group recognised Haile Sellassie as the Living God. The early Ras Tafari Missions originated and developed independently. Dunkley's efforts was the King of Kings Missionary Movement; this had no headquarters, officers, or constitution. Dunkley confined his preaching to Kingston. In 1932 Hibbert, on hearing Howell preach at a street meeting in Kingston, asked for a brief spell on the platform, after which Howell asked him to help him in Kingston as he, Howell, was going to preach at Port Morant. Like Dunkley, Howell at that time had no formal constitution, rules or account of his mission. While Howell was in St. Thomas' Parish, Hibbert formed the body of Howell's followers into a group called the Ethiopian Coptic Faith, with a definite organisation, procedure, and rules. On returning from St. Thomas, Howell rejected this order, removing its banner and membership with him and leaving Hibbert to carry on alone. Hibbert continued preaching, and on one; or two occasions Dunkley, whose ideas had much in common with his, spoke on Hibbert's platform. With his mystical orientation and Masonic discipline, Hibbert proceeded to develop the Ethiopian Coptic Church on orderly lines, and for this purpose had certain extracts from the Ethiopic Bible of St. Sosimas, including the Ethiopia Dascalia (Apostolic Constitution), printed at his ovm expenses by the Star Printery, Kingston, for the instruction of his followers. Dunkley, who lacked this background, continued to base his teaching on the King James version of the Bible. The most successful early preacher was undoubtedly L. P. Howell, who moved between Kingston and Port Morant until 1940, with Robert Hinds as his deputy in Kingston. He had the largest following and was the most effective propagandist. On December 16th 1933 the Daily Gleaner reported that Howell was selling photographs of the Emperor in St. Thomas for one shilling each. (Daily Gleaner, 16/12/33, p.l.) Informants say that about 5,000 postcardsize photographs were distributed in this way, the purchasers being informed that this was their passport to Ethiopia. On January 5th 1934 the Daily Gleaner 10

reported Howell's arrest at Port Morant. His trial was well publicised in the Daily Gleaner of 15th March 1934 (p.20) and 17th March 1934 (p.6). Howell was sent to gaol for two years for sedition. On December 7th 1935 the Jamaica Times published an account of the socalled Niyabingi Order in Ethiopia and the Congo (see Appendix). This was just a few months after Italy had invaded Ethiopia. Both Ethiopia and Haile Sellassie were is the news. According to the account in the Times, the Ethiopian Emperor was head of the Niyabingi Order, the purpose of which was the overthrow of white domination by racial war. This violent note had already been struck by Howell, and Niyabingi was defined in Jamaica as "Death to black and white oppressors". Some of those people who worshipped the Emperor and were locally known as 'Ras Tafaris' or 'Rastamen' came to describe themsewes as 'Niyamen' - that is, members of Niyabingi. The Niyabingi commitment to racial violence generalised the violence already preached by Howell. The police were not slow to act. Besides arresting Howell, they charged Dunkley with disorderly conduct while holding a meeting at Bond Street and Spanish Town Road, Kingston, on September 11th 1934. Shortly after this, Dunkley was sent to gaol for 30 days on a similar charge at Morant Bay. On the 20th February 1935 he was placed in the Half-Way-Tree lock-up and frou there removed to the Asylum, where he remained for five months and twenty. one days. J. N. Hibbert was also arrested on three occasions in 1935; once in Port Morant, where he had gone to correct Howell's doctrinal errors, and twice in Kingston, being fined 30/- for disorderly conduct after apprehension on a charge of lunacy. On his release from prison, Howell is said to have run a bakery and occupied premises at 108 Princess Street, Oxford Street and the comer of Luke Lane and Heywood Street He established an organisation known as 'The Ethiopian Salvation Society', which was said to be a local branch of an American organisation. This Society was apparently registered under the Friendly Societies Law. To quote Howell's defence in a later trial: "In May 1940 he purchased Pinnacle on behalf of the Society in America for the branch in Jamaica. Apart from himself, over five hundred members of the Society resided at Pinnacle. The members did not pay any rent for living there. They burnt coal and lime, and cultivated portions of the property, which was a lar~e one. The proceeds of this, after the Mana~er had taken out a portion for food allowance and clothin~, went to the funds of the Society." (Daily Gleaner 25th Au~st 1941, p.16). Pinnacle, which is near Sligoville, was an abandoned estate when Howell acquired it. Informants relate that he moved there with about 1,600 followers from Kingston and Port Morant. By the middle of 1941 the police were taking action against the Pinnacle community. The Daily Gleaner of July 15th (p.1), 16th (p.16), 17th (p.1), 18th (p.1), 23rd (p.9), 26th (p.1), 29th (p.14), 31st (p.16), August 19th (p.6) and August 25th (p.15) gave full reports of this action and its
11

results. 70 Ras Tafari followers of Howell from more than BOO who lived at the Pinnacle camp were arrested, mainly on charges of growing ganja and violence. 28 of these were sent to prison. Howell evaded the police for several days, but was found on July 25th 1941 and brought before the court on 18th August that year, being convicted and sent to Spanish Town Prison for two years. Howell was convicted on four charges of assaulting people, not for growing ganja. Peasants settled on the environs of Pinnacle complained that their holdings were subject to raids from the Pinnacle community, and that they were often assaulted when seeking to claim their own property. One deposition cited Howell as saying, "I will give you ninety-six lashes, I will beat you and let you know to pay no taxes. I am Haile Sellassie, neither you nor the Government have any lands here." (Daily Gleaner, 31:7:41, p.1B). TIle account of life at Pinnacle which is presented by these newspaper reports corresponds closely with that given to us by Ras Tafari brethren. Some brethren say that at Pinnacle, Howell represented himself as God and took the title of Gangungu Maraj or more familiarly, Gong. He is said to have lived in a large house with thirteen wives or concubines. His followers worked the estate under his direction: yam was the main subsistence crop, and ganja (also known as marihuana, hashish, Indian hemp, or simply 'the herb') was the main cash crop. The trade in ganja is said to have been controlled. Howell is said to have acquired property at Rollington Town, Kingston and in the parish of Portland. In 1943 Howell returned to Pinnacle after being released from prison. His second administration seems to have been fairly similar to the first. His guardsmen grew their locks and were referred to as 'Ethiopian warriors'. Savage dogs assisted the guards. Strangers entering the estate gate were announced by beating on gongs. Howell paid the taxes on Pinnacle himself, redistributing the plots among his followers as he thought fit. By all accounts, Pinnacle seems to have been rather more like an old Maroon settlement than part of Jamaica. Its internal administration was Howell's business, not Government's. His therefore understandable that the unit could have persisted as a state within a state for several years without the people or Government of Jamaica being aware of it. Howell's men continued to raid their neighbours around Pinnacle, but lacking protection, these people kept silent. From 1933 Howell had been preaching violence, and apparently at Pinnacle this doctrine and body of attitudes took definite form. In 1954 the police finally broke up the settlement, after accumulating evidence that ganja was being grown there on a large scale. 163 persons were said to have been arrested, including Howell; but the latter was acquitted with three lieutenants on appeal. Thereafter he remained in Kingston, discredited among the brethren because he had made claims to divinity, and early this year he was confined to the Mental Hospital. From the earliest days, many Ras Tafari brethren had worn beards and let their hair grow, because of Ezekiel 5 and other Scriptures. Up at Pinnacle a further development occurred, probably after photographs of Somali, Masai, Galla and other tribes in or near the Ethiopian border had become current.
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This was the plaiting of long hair by men known as the 'men of dreadlocks' or simply'locksmen'. These men of dreadlocks were the Ethiopian Warriors and the self-declared Niyamen. Numbers 6:i, ii, v provides the Biblical basis for this practice. "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying: 'Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, When either man or woman shall separate themselves to vow the vow of a Nazarite, to separate themselves unto the Lord . . . all the days if the vow of the separation there shall no razor come upon his head: until the days he fulfilled in the which he separateth himself unto the Lord, he shall be holy and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow." According to informants, the men of Dreadlocks first began to appear in Kingston round about 1947.
Meanwhile other developments had taken place. In 1937 the Emperor Haile Selassie empowered Dr. Malaku E. Bayen, who later edited The March of Black Men: Ethiopia Leads (Voice of Ethiopia Press, New York, U.S.A., 1939) to establish the Ethiopian World Federation Inc. This organisation came into being on August 25th, 1937 in New York City, with the purpose set out in the following preamble: "We, the Black Peoples of the World, in order to effect Unity, Solidarity, Liberty, Freedom and self-determination, to secure Justice and maintain the Integrity of Ethiopia, which is our divine heritage, do hereby establish and ordain this constitution for the Ethiopian World Federation Inc." (The Constitution and By-Laws of the Ethiopian World Federation, 1937, pA). This Constitution and By-Laws is, as one would expect, a very careful and businesslike document, having articles which deal with aims and objects, membership, international officers and their duties, conventions, elections, meetings, local branches, their establishment and organisation, committees, impeachments of officers, units, benefits, amendments, order of business, etc. The document runs to 30 pages. The first Local was established in New York by Dr. Bayen in 1937. The first Local to be established in Jamaica was Local 17, which Paul Erlington set up in August 1938 with one Mr. Mantle as its first president, and Erlington as Vice-President.· Hibbert, Dunkley and those adherents of the Has Tafari doctrine other than Howell's supporters were foundation members of this Local, which quickly became dormant. The third President, Mr. C. P. Jackson, was dismissed for contempt of the members. Miss Green, his successor, whose appointment was a compromise between rivals, soon removed herself together with the Charter of the Local. Local 17 having died, Local 31 was then established with Mr. William Powell as its first President. This was in 1942. Disputes about leadership and operations continued until Mr. Cecil Gordon assumed the Presidency, which he then held for a number of years. Paul Erlington had gone to America during this period, and his early colleagues, Vernal Davis and Ricketts, who joined Local 31, soon got into difficulties with its leaders. Meanwhile the doctrine was spreading and a number of less formal groups emerged, some of which were the Ethiopian Coptic Church, the United Ethiopian Body, under Brothers Claudius Stewart and Joseph Myers, the United Afro-West Indian Brotherhood under Mr. Rafael Downer, the Ethiopian Youth

13:

Cosmic Faith under Brother Edie, who has since gone to England, the African Cultural League, and the Brotherhood Solidarity of United Ethiopians (B.S.U.E.), linked to the local Ethiopian World Federation movement loosely, if at all. J. N. Hibbert had established in 1941 a local branch of the Ethiopian Mystic Masons, which was closely connected with his Ethiopian Coptic Church. By 1944 this branch had become dormant, due to the emigration of its members to Panama. Many other small groups which had sprung up in the movement in this period suffered a similar fate. In 1953 Simpson estimated that there were twelve groups of Ras Tafari brethren in Kingston, haVing memberships ranging between 20 and 150. He noted that at that time the public seemed to have little interest in or overt resentment of the brethren, who were none the less regarded with contempt and disgust, especially the lacksmen. Police interference was negligible, except for periodic ganja raids.

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CHAPTERW RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
In 1953 when Professor George Simpson studied the Ras Tafari brethren in Kingston, the various groups operated independently and attracted little public notice; but the Ras Tafari movement as a whole was on the verge of important developments. Pinnacle was raided in 1954, and the increase in the number of dreadlocks men in Kingston dates from then. 1955 saw a very large expansion of the activities of the Ethiopian World Federation in Jamaica. The commencement of large scale emigration to Britain, the decline of reVivalism in Jamaica, and the activities of the political parties, all gave a fillip to the movement, which has since grown very rapidly. In 1954 the police invaded Pinnacle and many of Howell's followers went to gaol. Others scattered, some to Kingston, others to Vere or other parts of the country. The numbel" of locksmen in Kingston increased at this time. Howell, a broken force as far as the Ras Tafari brethren were concerned, ceased to be a leader. The country had been alerted to the scale of ganja production, and in 1957 the Government denied the special privileges claimed by the Maroons of Aceompong after a well publicised lawsuit, involving ganja cultivation. Colonel Michelin, then Commissioner of Police, ordered several drives against ganja cultivation and traffic. The number of prison sentences on these grounds increased sharply. Since the Ras Tafari brethren were known to praise and esteem ganja, they were an obvious target for these raids. Bad blood increased between the brethren and the police. From 1954, police had acted against bands of locksmen in Kingston; one group of 18 was arrested, charged with contempt of Court, then with rioting, and finally with assembling with a view to rioting. Twelve of these were sent to gaol for fifteen months each. In the same year another group of 32 locksmen were arrested at North Street while marching with banner and Bible, demanding freedom. (Daily Gleaner, 17.4.54, p.l). Clearly, the break-up of Pinnacle was linked with this sudden appearance of marching bands of locksmen in Kingston. The police, after their experience of Pinnacle, may have assumed that groups of locksmen were of Howell's persuasion, bent on trouble. Perhaps for this reason the police were quick to act before trouble broke out. They are also said to have shaved and beaten locksmen accosted in these groups.

In 1955 Mrs. Maymie Richardson came to Jamaica on behalf of the headquarters of the Ethiopian World Federation Inc. to expound its doctrine and organise further Locals. There was a rush of informal groups into the E.W.F., and shortly afterwards Locals ZT, 11,37,32,33, :19,40,41,43 and 77 were estab. lished, most of these receiving their Charter during November 1955. Local 11 at Rock Hall, St. Andrew, Local 32 at Montego Bay and Local 25 at Spanish Town are the only branches outside of Kingston. Only two Locals, Dumbers
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19 under Cecil G. Gordon, and 31 are registered with Government. Gordon had left Local 31 to establish 19 when Mrs. Richardson came. Unregistered Locals are loosely attached to those recognised by Government. Downer's United Afro-West Indian Brotherhood became Local 7 in 1955, and Hibbert's Ethiopian Coptic Church became. Local ~. The B.S.U.E. and the African Cultural League joined together to form Local 37. After Brother Edie had left for England, members of the Ethiopian Youth Cosmic Faith moved into Locals 7 and 33. H. Archibald Dunkley, on a prophetic interpretation of the Scriptures, acquired the Charter for Local 77 and wound up the King of Kings Mission and that Local forthwith. Local 40 came to grief when the man who had paid more than half of the establishment and members' dues found that a rival intended to collect the Charter and pass it on to one of the leaders of the Marxist People's Freedom Movement. He quickly confiscated the Charter, and the Local never met again. Local 41 consists of women only. Mr. Cecil Gordon, the President of Local 19, visited the United States in 1956 for the 17th Annual Convention of the E.W.F.Inc., and returned as Second International Vice-President for the Caribbean. Mr. R. R. I. Maclean and Mr. Lloyd Brooks, the President of Local 13, are both Deputy International Organisers and Officers of the New York headquarters. Certain groups already established such as the Ethiopian Body continued to remain aloof from the Federation, split, and developed their own branch organisations. Other groups, such as the United United Afro-West Indian Brotherhood, continue to function as Missions in St. Ann's Bay and Montego Bay, and Local 32 came into being in this way. Many more Ras Tafari brethren were still unaffiliated to organisations of any sort. Some members of E.W.F. Locals established their own movements while remaining affiliated to their Local; thus, the United African Nationalist Movement is headed by certain members of Local 37 and represents a Missionary effort to recruit adherents ostensibly for enrolment in the E.W.F. branches. In 1955 the Jamaican migration to Britain assumed major proportions (G. W. Roberts and D. O. Mills, 1958, "Study of External Migration Affecting Jamaica 1953-55"; Social &: Economic Studies Vol. 7, No.2, p.45), and in the same year the executive of the Ethiopian World Federation Inc. at 151 Lenox Avenue, New York ~, wrote to the Executive Committee of Local 31, informing them that the Emperor Haile Sellassie I had granted "500 acres of very fertile and rich land . . . through the Ethiopian World Federation Inc., to the Black People of the West, who aided Ethiopia during her period of distress". With the migration to Britain underway, and the opportunity for migration to Ethiopia apparently open, the Messianic cult which Professor Simpson had studied in 1953 became a full-blown belief in mass migration. In June 1955 one of the writers visited St. Elizabeth to carry out a survey of labour and employment conditions. All households in a given area were to be enumerated. Almost to. a man, the people interviewed regarded the survey as a census by Government of all those who wanted to go to Africa. With the rapid increase of emigration to Britain, the movement to Africa was also in the air.

I

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In 1955 Mr. Brandford of Trench Town, Kingston is said to have approached certain City merchants, asking for clothes in which to go to Ethiopia. He had dreamed that the Emperor told him to prepare and proceed to Palisadoes Airport, Kingston, where aircraft were awaiting him and his followers. In late 1955 and 1956 other groups went to the various Kingston piers after receiving similar messages, and sought passages on boats. Garvey is reported to have said that No.1 Pier and No.2 Pier and Victoria Pier would be filled with boats waiting to take the people back to Africa. Ghana was just becoming independent. Liberia was said to be inviting West Indian immigrants. The Emperor himself had authorised the Ethiopian World FederatioD Inc., New York to organise black settlers to occupy lands which he had personally made available from his own estate in Ethiopia. We have now to go back a few years to introduce a musical note. Until 1930, Revivalism (pocomania and Zion) had a ritual monopoly among the yamaican folk, rural and urban. This cult, described by Professor George Simpson (Geo. E. Simpson 1956 - "Jamaican Revivalist Cults" - Social & Economic Studies, Vol. 5, No.4, pp 321- 442) was frankly polytheistic and stressed an autocratic leadership of small competing groups. Revival, which spread throughout Jamaica after the Great Revival of 1861, had displaced earlier tribal cults, only one of which, the Cumina of St. Thomas and West Kingston, still retains its original form. Oos. G. Moore & Ceo. E. Simpson, "A Comparative Study of Acculturation in Morant Bay & West Kingston" - Zaire 1957 - Nos. 9-10 pp 979-1019 and 1958 No.1, pp 65-87 Belgium). Like Cumina, Revival stressed spirit possession and sought this through the dance and the drums. Working with the Ras Tafari and Revival groups in Kingston in 1953, Simpson was especially impressed by their differences, and summarised these as follows:
.,-

'

''All of these cults draw their members from the economically depressed, uneducated lower class of Jamaica. Revivalists and Rastafarians are bitter enemies, and have nothinJ!: but contempt for one another. We have referred earlier to the authoritarianism of Revivalist cults and the democracy of the Ras Tafari movement. Spirit possession, a prominent feature of Revivalist meetinJ!:s, never occurs in a Ras Tafari J!:atherinl!:. Witchcraft and healinJ!:, exceedingly important activities in both Revivalist bands, are not practised by the Rasta peopll(. In the four Ras Tafari groups I observed, the ubiquitous drums of the Revivalists were replaced by rhumbaboxes. Otherwise the musical instruments were much the same, consisting mainly of rattles and tambourines." (Geo. E. Simpson, 1955, "The Ras Tafari Movement in Jamaica: A StudJ9 of Race and Class Conflict." Social Forces, Vol. 34, No.2, p.l ) ' , I

Simpson's studies occurred on the eve of major changes in Jamaican folk religion. Since 1953 Revival or pocomania has steadily lost ground before expanding American Protestant missions, especially the Church of God movement financed originally from the United States. Where there were many flourishing pocomania tabernacles in Kingston, there are now relatively few. Those people who originally practised or preached Revival have either joined the Church

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of God, lost faith, moved elsewhere, or drifted in the direction of the monotheistic multi-sided Ras Tafari creed. One of the older Jamaican musical forms was burra. Burra may have come from the same religious stratum ·as the Cumina dance; since 1930 it has been mainly confined to the slum areas of Kingston. Burra has three distinctive drums mown as the bass, funde and repeater. All are double-membraned drums, the bass being the largest and the funde ·and repeater being small drums of similar size. The repeater, which is the treble drum, has a tight membr:ane while that of the funde is slack. The repeater plays the melody, the bass gives the rhythm and the funde syncopates. Cumina and the Big Drum or Nation Dance of the South Caribbean also use three drums of a similar pattem. In Kingston the burra drums were used for secular dances on holidays but they also had a more specialised function. It was the custom of slum dwellers in the early thirties to welcome discharged prisoners back to their communities by bUlTa drums and dances on the night of their return. Only those ",bo knew the purpose of such a dance would normally join it. Throughout this period no drums were used at -Ras Tafari meetings, although RasTafari members would often attend these burra dances. With the collapse of Revival in Kingston and the dispersal of Howell's following from Pinnacle, the increase of ganja pro.. secutions and the police action against Locksmen especially, a new development took place. Many criminals p~ofessed the cult and adopted the beard for professional purposes. Of these the late Woppy King who was executed for rape and murder is merely the best-known. Many Ras Tafari brethren became habituated to crime through association with hardened criminals after long sentences in gaol on gania charges. Those brethren whose avoidance of ganja and locks kept them clear of the police progressively disassociated them.. selves from the Locksmen among whom the criminals moved more freely. The old bUlTa dance by which discharged prisoners were reintewated with their slum communities was taken over into the Ras Tafari movement by Locksmen. The burra drums became known as akete drums and the old burra dance was replaced by the Nivabingi dance. The criminal commitment to violence and disorder reinforced the Niyabin~ doctrine of "Death to white oppressors and their black allies". Anti-social behaviour became a positive ~oal for some and a mark of pride of race for others. As more people, including old Revival Shepherds, left pocomania for Ras Tafari, emphasis on drumming increased, and with it the Nivabingi sub-cult of violence. Thus criminality {tot a foothold within the· Ras Tafari movement. The more obvious this seemed to the police, the weater was their cpersecutfon', and the greater the number of convictions, the more rapid the wowth of this element. Its expansion took place at the expense of the more reasonable and orderly section of the Ras Tafari movement. In March 1958 Prince Edward C. Edwards held a cConvention' of Ras Tafari brethren at Kingston Pen adjoining Back 0' Wall. Handbills had been circulated in advance announcing this Convention. Some brethren from as far afield as Montego Bay sold their belongings and- giving away the proceeds came to Kingston in the firm belief that at the end of the Con-

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vention they would embark for Africa. The Convention was reported in the Jamaica Times (March 8, 1958 pp.l and 14). Eyewitnesses relate that a large number of old car and tractor tyres were collected at Prince Edward's establishment behind the Tivoli Cinema, that H.E. the Governor, Sir Kenneth Blackbume, visited Edwards' premises before the Convention opened, and that speeches made by young and old on the platform before the assembly consisted of streams of filthy language, which is perfectly in order among some brethren, who hold that no words are bad in themselves. Nightly dances to the akete drums were held around fires fuelled with the collected tyres. Some witnesses indicate that there were guards, "soldiers" and the like policing the place. The Niyabingi dance and theme were publicised through these gatherings, which lasted for 21 days. On one occasion units of the Kingston Fire Brigade were called on to put out the fires which had become threatening. They did this with considerable enthusiasm, dousing the environs at the same time. Thereafter there were no fires. One morning at about 4 a.m. an assembly of Ras Tafari brethren moved in a body to the Parade known as Victoria Park shouting their intention to capture it. On receiving news of this, the police moved to meet them, and after some fighting the Park was cleared. The Convention, which had apparently attracted three thousand people (Jamaica Times, 8th March 1958, p.l) many of whom were Locksmen, seems to have ended without anyone embarking for Africa. Those who had disposed of their property in this belief were ashamed to retum to their communities. Prince Edward's convention marks the decisive point in the deterioration of relations between the Government and the public on the one hand, and the Ras Tafari movement on the other. The anti-social elements so heavily emphasised during those three weeks were perhaps irrevocable. During the latter part of 1958 two cases occurred at Trench Town, Kingston in which Ras Tafari men were said to have thrown children into the fire as sacrifices. The cult of criminality and violence increased steadily within the movement. Its moderate wing lost control, and a fair number of E.W.F. Locals became dormant. The news of Haile Sellassie's land grant spread like a rumour, unverified, irrefutable. The executive of Local 19, who held the letter, did little to publicise the facts. The moderate wing were sharply divided among themselves on doctrinal and personal grounds. In the early part of 19159 the Rev. Claudius Henry, a Jamaican who had been in America for some years, established the Seventh Emmanuel Brethren, shortly to be followed by the African Reform Church, after a brief and unsuccessful association with the Ethiopian World Federation, the local head of which, Mr. Cecil G. Gordon, published a letter in the "Star" (April-May 1959) disclaiming association with Henry. During the summer of 1959 several thousand cards bearing the following statement were distributed: Pioneering Israel's scattered Children of African Origin back home to Africa, this year 1959, deadline date Oct. 5th, this new Government is God's Righteous Kingdom of Everlasting Peace on

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Earth, "Creation's Second Birth". Holder ,of this Cer~ificate is requested to visit the Headquarters at 78 Rosalie Ave., off Waltham Park Road, Au~st 1st 1959,' for Our Emancipation Jubilee commencing 9 a.m~ sharp. Please,'pteserve this :Certificate for removal. No passport will be necess~ry -fOf" .~q~e :,'returnin'~, ~,ome ,t.o Af~ic~; Bring this Certificate with,. you, on AUgllstl.st,.£or ,IdentIficatIon We are sincerely, "The Seventh Emmanuel's Brethren" gathering Israel's Scattered Children for' removal, with our Leader, God's Appointed and Anointed Prophet, Rev., c. V~ Henry, R.B. Given this 2nd . d ay of March 1959, 'in the year of the reign of His Imperial Majesty, IstEIriperor cof;Ethiopia,"God's Elect". Haile Sellassie. King 'of Kin~s an