Afro-Asian Connections in Latin America and the Caribbean by Luisa Marcela Ossa Debbie Lee-DiStefano

Author:Luisa Marcela Ossa,Debbie Lee-DiStefano
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781498587099
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing

Chapter 6

Erased from Collective Memory

Dreadlocks Story Documentary Untangles the Hindu Legacy of Rastafari

Linda Aïnouche

By Way of Introduction

I mused on the documentary Dreadlocks Story in terms of triggering a keen reaction concerning the Indian cultural influences on the Rastafari movement and lifestyle that have been erased from collective memory. I produced and directed this ethnographic film by looking from the outside at the encounters between cultures, ones that had not yet been addressed in cinema. I deliberately created the film to be informative by generating several layers of fundamental elements; by embracing the aesthetics of visual clarity, I was able to explore the themes of identity, cultural heritage, human movement, discrimination, history and social stereotypes.

Over the course of three years, Dreadlocks Story has already been seen in more than 50 countries, and many times in some of them; reached remote villagers and esteemed university populations; passed through world-famous film festivals; and been rewarded with multiple Best Feature Documentary awards.1

Entitled Dreadlocks Story, this documentary would automatically mislead everyone on its subject. This 123-minute film was neither thought, let alone made, to express or satisfy an exclusively Rastafari point of view. Rather, in restoring thoughts and understanding of our World History, it underscores the ignorance on Indian enslavement in the Caribbean. It places them under the spotlight of those who were also routinely oppressed by the British Colonists.

This documentary’s cogitation pivoted on the agreed idea that Leonard Percival Howell, recognized as the founding father of Rastafari, used a Hindu pen name to sign his teaching pamphlet in the 1930s. The encounters between Indians and Afro-Jamaicans are considered in terms of anthropology and unveiled as such. This film displays a horizontal construction between the similarities of Hindu and Rasta ways of life, enlivened and completed by the context of the emergence of the Rasta movement and the reasons for Indian presence in Jamaica in the colonial era of bygone days.

The cultural meeting of two sets of people, African and Asian, documents their fascinating exchange and certifies the critical role of the sociology of the British Empire in the inception of the Rastafari movement. This is how Dreadlocks Story casts a twin process: (1) discover Indian history in Jamaica which is barely known, for lack of research, interest and possibly sources; (2) underscore the complex attitude toward culture in Jamaica at large through an anthropological perspective.

A recollection of cultural elements and interplay between cultures are key components of Dreadlocks Story. It presents the reconciliation of African and Asian descendants, encountered in an ethnocultural space, that the experience of corresponding histories allowed the creation of a new cultural system to state an identity. This rapprochement is important from the social perspective, from the point of view of living together, and of sharing a past, present, and future.

This chapter provides a discussion of Dreadlocks Story’s content, illustrated with excerpts of participants’ interviews. It addresses the importation of thousands of Indian indentured workers by the British to the Caribbean basin, an examination of the Hindu Sadhu lifestyle, and

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