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Among
Pirates and Rastas
By Rowan
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I've just returned from a two week stay in Barbados,
the easternmost island of the Caribbean. It's almost the southernmost
also, and the temperature was perfect for the holidays. All
my life I've had a fascina- tion with pirates, so I kept an
eye out for them in Barbados, which was once a pirate hangout
along with the rest of the Caribbean. Pirates of the sea no
longer frequent those waters, but land pirates are another
story. Barbados and the Caribbean are also home to many Rastafarians,
and I've had an ongoing interest in them also.
Barbados is the wealthiest
of the Caribbean Islands, which isn't saying much.
It's one of the most densely populated countries on earth,
but it's still lonely compared with Jamaica, another Caribbean
Island. Almost everyone in Barbados is black, but there are
small white and Indian minorities. There are more Rastafarians,
or Rastas, than in even Jamaica, the birthplace of the Rastafarian
religion. I think it might be safe to say there are more Rastas
per capita than anywhere else on Earth. Rastas traditionally
wear their hair in dreadlocks, smoke marijuana religiously,
and worship Haile Selassie.
Selassie was the emperor
of Ethiopia in the early 1900s and was an Ethiopian
Orthodox Christian, a branch of Christianity that goes back
hundreds of years in Ethiopia. Black people in the Caribbean
have maintained their African culture in ways black Americans
have not. I'd often see Barbadian, or Bajan, women carrying
large bundles on their heads. There are many styles of clothes
made and worn in the Caribbean that are obviously African.
The early Caribbean slave owners didn't tinker much with the
culture of their slaves, so a strong African identity persevered.
Jamaica was where Marcus Garvey was from, the black man famous
for organizing a "Back to Africa" movement in the Caribbean
and America.
Rastafarianism was started in
the 30's in amaica as kind of an extension of Garvey's
African identity movement. Rastas consider Africa the homeland,
and Ethiopia in particular. Rastas are encouraged to make
a holy pilgrimage there, where some have moved permanently.
The Ethiopian flag of red, green, and gold have been adopted
as the flag for the whole African continent by Rastas. The
word "Rastafarian" comes from Haile Sellasse's alternate name
of "Ras Tafari." He himself disagreed with the Rastas about
his godliness and told them not to worship him, but to no
avail. He visited Jamaica once to express brotherhood with
Jamaicans. I'm not sure how dreadlocks and marijuana, or "ganja"
as they call it, came into the picture. I do know, however,
that in Ethiopia there are holy men (I forget their name)
who are hermits and live in caves and have dreadlocks, both
Christians and Muslims. I'm not sure if the Christian ones
smoke marijuana or not, but many Ethiopian Muslims eat marijuana
leaves as part of their religious ceremonies. Marijuana goes
back pretty far in Ethiopia, where the oldest hookah (water
pipe) ever found was, complete with marijuana remnants.
In America Rastas are best
known through their music, reggae, which was popularized
in the 70's by the late Bob Marley. One of Marley's albums
was nominated the album of the century, I think, in the last
issue of Time. In Barbados reggae plays everywhere, in every
bus and restaurant and house. In my two weeks on the island,
I had the luck to visit the only true reggae night club there
twice. It was called The Penthouse, for some reason. The first
time I went there were 4 other white people (tourists) there,
and the second time only one, and I felt lucky to have such
a unique experience. Every other guy had dreadlocks and I've
never heard of so much marijuana being smoked at one time.
The dancing was very slow and slight, which is my kind of
style. There was a d.j. who would play the records and sing
along to them and give a running rhythmic euphoric commentary
like a mix between rap and auctioning. When people liked what
he was doing especially much, they would bang the floor and
walls and point their fingers in the air like guns and make
shooting noises of "Bwah! Bwah! Bwah!" I was told this comes
from Jamaica, and that before security tightened at the club,
people would use real guns. Not quite the peaceful Rastas
one might hope for.
Thieves are a problem in
Barbados, especially for white people. I was told
not to bring money to the beach near where I was staying,
or it would surely be stolen. The first night at The Penthouse,
I had trouble finding a cab afterwards and my friend and I
were harassed by a guy wanting money from us who never actually
did anything to us. A few days before I'd run into a problem
of slightly worse proportions as I was leaving the Rasta section
of the capitol, Bridgetown. For reasons of my own, I will
not go into details about this, except to say I came out of
it 3 dollars poorer and a bit confused and small feeling.
I'd just been hanging out with a Rasta Sculptor named Ras
Ilix, a kind dreadlocked fellow who I bought a small clay
head off of. I asked him, sure that he'd know, if there are
any pirates in Barbados, and he told me "A pirate jus' a tief,
ya know?" (A pirate's just a thief, you know?) and I was forced
to agree. So having dealt with a couple modern day pirates
I asked a museum employee on my last day in Barbados about
the island's pirate past. Until then, I had only been assuming
it had one, as a Caribbean Island and the rum capitol of the
world. She told me briefly about how at least one pirate had
a huge castle there which still stands where he would watch
for passing ships to loot.
hadn't the time
or means to visit the castle, nor the Rastafarian
Church on the opposite coast I'd heard so much about but didn't
know the location of. There's a small chance I'll visit Barbados
again someday, in which case I can make a point of it. Personally,
I thought it was a bit too fast paced even for a Silicon Valley
boy like myself. I would walk through stores where there was
hardly a foot of floor not being stood on by one of many shoppers.
The bus rides there are the fastest most dangerous seeming
rides I may have ever been on. Going at 80 miles an hour,
the buses purposefully graze everything they can and narrowly
miss head-on collisions with a kind of proud joy that's both
scary and hysterical.
I suppose you may be wondering
what this has to do with the Baby Boom Generation,
or any generation for that matter, and the truth is I'm not
quite sure. The most obvious relevance I can find is the connection
between Rastafarians and the counterculture of the late 60s
and 70s. "Hippy" and "Rasta" have become almost interchangeable
these days. Among modern day hipsters, Dead Heads, and Rainbow
Gatherers, dreadlocks say "60's" as much as they say "reggae".
The quintessential modern hippy kid has dreadlocks, plays
the didgeridoo, (an Aboriginal Australian instrument) and
listens to reggae, along with the other trademark hippy music.
As far as religions, Rastafarianism is the one most thoroughly
respected among young hipsters. Rastas are not the only people
who have traditionally had dreadlocks. The saddhus, or holy
men, of India and Nepal have long dreadlocks. They are kind
of a parallel group with the ones in Ethiopia. They avoid
material possessions and cover themselves in ash and smoke
hashish out of chillum pipes as a religious ceremony. I don't
approve of marijuana or hashish (or alcohol for that matter)
but Rastas are still an interesting group and I'll continue
to keep an eye out for Rasta culture.
As a last little tidbit
of data to download onto you, I'd like to tell you
about my love of the Caribbean accent. It's a mix of African
and English and sailor talk, among other things. By sailor
talk, I mean the kind spoken by pirates in pirate movies when
they say "aarr, me maties!" or "Ahoy tharr!" It has a use
of the "R" sound and a rhythmic quality not found in The Queen's
own English. Noticing all this, I drew a parallel between
this island/sailor talk and the American accent, and then
the Celtic. All three make great and colorful use of the "R"
sound and are a bit more rolling and rollicking than England's
English. It would make sense, because the Celts of the British
Isles have always been very see faring, and probably made
up a large part of the pirate population, which was highly
outlawed by England. And America has a large Celtic population
by any standard. I'm a bit Celtic myself, and all of this
has been fun to think about. Back to Barbadians, they sound
so much like the pirates I grew up fantasizing about fighting
on the seven seas, it was quite fun to listen to them.
So if you're ever out on the rollin' sea and
you come upon any pirates or Rastas, tell them Rowan said
hi, and give them big pirate hugs and Rasta kisses for me
here in San Jose. Our neighbors in the Caribbean are interesting
folk, and they seem to be entertained with us indefinitely
well, I'm off now to watch a cheesy movie with an even cheesier
soundtrack. Ahoy!
Rowan C. Millar is a Generation Y'er.
He lives in Silicon Valley.
Rowan's Archive columns
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Other columns by Rowan
Generation Y And The Internet
Hip Hop,
And Its Place In The Generational Soup
THE GENERATION GAP
Among Pirates and Rastas
WTO Protest Has Links With The Past..........
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