Rastafarian Children of Solomon by Gerald Hausman

Author:Gerald Hausman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spirituality/Culture
Publisher: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Published: 2002-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

12

Prophet

But Jesus said unto them, “A prophet is not without honor, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.”

And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and he healed them.

And he marveled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.

And he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits;

And commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse:

But be shod with sandals; and not put on two coats.

MARK 6:4–9

I have been reading about Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Mackie’s and Burning Spear’s countryman, a black man who grew up in the sweet hills of St. Ann some fifty years before they did. Garvey, the prophet of African roots and repatriation, whose reputation even today is clouded with misunderstanding, was a figure of greatness, but he was also such a complex man that it is difficult sometimes to assess him properly. Some say he was a tormented, gifted, spiritual leader, a man who should have stayed out of politics. Others note that his remarkable qualities came from his passion for, and support of, the political arena that gave him so much grief. What was he, and what is he to us today?

Beside Emperor Haile Selassie I, Marcus Garvey is seen by the Rastafarian community, as a guiding light. His spirit, something like the Holy Ghost to some Rastas, is one of redemptive grace; Garvey taught rootsmen-in-the-making how to find their ancestry; he told them how to become Ethiopian, and he urged them to reconsider their actions in light of their immanent return to the fatherland of Africa.

In the Rasta pantheon there are three notable prophetic figures, whose names are indelible and whose sayings and proverbs are always on people’s lips. Therefore, there is a kind of triumvirate, as in the shaping of the Old Testament theology of Moses. If, for example, Haile Selassie I represents the figure of Jah, or God almighty, then Marcus Garvey would function as a biblical patriarch such as Moses (the name fits: Marcus Mosiah). Bob Marley, whose mythology is the newest of the three, seems to be a martyred prophet; some say he is the modern black equivalent of Jesus.

All of this is relative, of course, since Rastafarianism is an atomically principled—that is, constantly changing—religion that does not wish to call itself a religion. So each individual Rasta seems to have his own/her own patriarchal figure(s).

Marcus Garvey, as the prophet of black redemption, is universally admired by the previous generation of Rastafarians. Burning Spear began his career chanting mystic hymns in praise of Garvey, and his anthem is still ringing and one of his thoughtful questions—“Who was old Marcus Garvey?”—is still being answered today.

Among other things, Garvey was the creator, almost singlehandedly, of the concept of repatriation. But

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