The Role of Ganja in Rastafari Culture

In Jamaica during the early 1930’s, Rastafari began as a socio-religious movement that formed to reject the “hegemonic and homogenizing British imperial culture that dominated Jamaica’s colonial society” and also to create an identity that would re-appropriate African heritage (Edmonds, 2012:1). In the beginning, Rastas were comprised of a small population in Jamaica, but Rastafari has since evolved into an international movement consisting of somewhere between 700,000 and 100,000 people worldwide (Edmonds, 2012:71). One characteristic that widely defines Rastas is their belief in Haile Ras Tafari Selassie I — former emperor of Ethiopia — as the divine black liberator in human form (Edmonds, 2012). Other Rastafari core values include livity, or natural living, smoking ganja, reasoning (the ritual smoking of ganja to reach higher understanding through conversation), reggae, dreadlocks, dreadtalk and the rejection of establishments, conformity and the Babylonian spirit.

This paper serves to explain the smoking of ganja as an agency used by Rastafarians as well as its association with the practice of livity, reasoning rituals, language, music and religion. When estate wage labor in Jamaica spread at the turn of the century, ganja was largely associated with the lower-working class after the importation of the herb from India. Upper classes noted that ganja would result in productive workers and adequate compensation for a day’s labor, ultimately leading to their approval. Ganja came to be considered a rite of passage for youth who were about to begin their life’s work in cane fields (Lewis, 1993:60). The Rastas, on the other hand, decided to intentionally disregard societal norms and establishments by crafting and reconstructing their repressed African culture through religion, symbols, lifestyle and worldview.

The Rastas viewed the potential benefits and uses of ganja in a drastically different way. For Rastas, “ganja does not lighten the burden of an oppressive day’s work because their labor is self-serving,” but instead is used as a way toward illumination which “upsets the structures or orderliness, propriety and respectability demanded by Jamaican society” (Lewis, 1993:60–61). Rastas are able to reach this state of illumination through a reasoning ritual — “a communal undertaking in which one shares beliefs about liberation and justice and relates them to the black experience of slavery, colonialism and racism” (Lewis, 1993:25).

During reasoning rituals, Rastas undergo a ceremony of degradation which forces them to suspend the social statuses of their daily lives through intense mocking and ridicule of one’s personal values, ultimately reaching a state of liminality (the in-between phase of a rite of passage) which allows them to appreciate themselves as liberated people through an experience devoid of meanings that could be considered oppressive (Lewis, 1993:30).

Amid this intellectually stimulating endeavor, the Rastas ascend to an ‘I-n-I’ awareness, a Rastafarian usage that joins the person (I) with the divinity (I). In this awareness there is a unity of Jah Selassie I and the creature, an experience from which the Rasta derive an inestimable sense of freedom (Lewis, 1993:30).

The ritual smoking of ganja during reasoning symbolizes sociability and a communal bond, which bares a resemblance to communion among Christians through the taking of the bread and wine — ritual smoking during reasoning is similar to the taking of the chalice in that it is used as a means to connect with a higher power collectively (Edmonds, 2012:48–49). According to White (2010:311), “some Rastas smoke alone, but smoking in groups as a communal act is standard practice,” which White refers to as “communal truth seeking”.

Rastas use ganja in their practice of livity (natural living), which includes a commitment to using natural products opposed to manufactured or artificial products to avoid poor human health and degradation of the environment. Though Rastas gather and cultivate an array of herbs from the wild and their gardens for their natural ability to heal and promote mental clarity and long-lasting physical health, Ganja is considered the supreme herb (Edmonds, 2012:47–48). According to Horace Campbell in his book Rasta and Resistance, “the climate of Jamaica is particularly hospitable to the crop, of which there are two harvests per year; and this plant has an advantage over perishable crops in that it can be stored without deterioration.”

Not only is ganja smoked for ritual and recreational purposes within Rastafari culture, but it is used in the preparation of food and drinks as well. Ganja is employed as an ingredient in medicinal mixtures, spices for cooking, as well as tea (Edmonds, 2012:48). According to Edmonds, Rastas vindicate their use of ganja in Revelations 22:2: ‘On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations’ (NIV).

In the 1940’s, Dreadtalk was formed as a language solely by the Rastas as a way to create a dialogue that was more centralized to their culture, allowing them to express themselves independently. Rastas considered the english language insufficient and by “drawing inspiration from their ganja-induced state of mind, Rastas engaged in the task of remaking the English language and the Jamaican patwa (patois) into a potent instrument for expressing their own perspective” (Edmonds, 2012:45). Dreadtalk largely consists of ‘I’ words in order to portray the presence of the divine, as well as consciousness of themselves as divine. Some examples include: ‘InI’ which means the divine unity of Gods and humans, ‘ital’ refers to their diet of natural or organic foods and an ‘Iman’ is a Rasta aware of their inner divinity (Edmonds, 2012:45).

The Dreadtalk language is interwoven with reggae music as well, which can be noted in a few Bob Marley songs such as “Kaya” and “Positive Vibration”. Therefore, ganja arguably played a role in the formation of the reggae genre and can be credited with having a significant impact on the aesthetic and perspective of the genre. The emergence of this lively and distinctive sound eventually led to a widespread appeal and awareness of not only the genre, but Rastafari culture moreover.

Even though reggae blends numerous musical influences, it gradually began to embody Rastafarian components more frequently which resulted in Rastafarian dominance of the reggae genre. Edmonds cites Whitney and Hussey as stating, “the new music combined all the styles which had gone before, but with a spiritual content only partially evident during the rock steady period. The growing Rastafarian faith gave the music a new urgency, a new spirit” (Edmonds, 2003:106).

Another core element of Rastafari is their emphasis placed on the divergence and rejection of the Babylonian spirit. During the seventh and sixth centuries, Babylon was an ancient biblical city in Mesopotamia that controlled and persecuted Jews in the Middle East by forcing them into exile and raiding their city. Porter states in the Encyclopedia of Anthropology that, “although the Assyrians looked on the city as an important religious center, Babylon did not escape the wrath of Assyria’s strongest King, Sennacherib, who destroyed the cities important temples to suppress a revolt”. Rastas hold the belief that the Babylonian spirit exists in contemporary society through colonialism, global capitalism, and social, political and economic institutions (Edmonds, 2012:38–40).

For Rastas, therefore, black people in the West are exiles in Babylon, alienated from their African homeland, their African culture, and their sense of African identity. The objective of Rastafari is to delegitimize and destroy, or ‘chant down’, Babylon––ultimately restoring blacks to their African selves and their status as human beings endowed with divine consciousness (Edmonds, 2012:40).

Since Rastas maintain the belief that alcohol and all other drugs, excluding ganja, were used in Babylon to ruin the minds of black people, they are strictly prohibited. In the case of ganja, however, the sacred herb is thought to produce an insightful state that allows the Rasta to move beyond divisions and classifications associated with Babylon in order to find Jah. Rastas contend that it was for this reason the Babylon government restricted ganja use (Edmonds, 2003:60–61).

From the early sixties into the early nineties, ganja use in Jamaica was often considered a precursor to violence by authorities and a pest to planters. Following a League of Nations Conference in 1924, the British prohibited the cultivation of ganja and regulated the sale and possession of it, leaving those caught required to take out a licence to pay the colonial state. The law remained inactive in Jamaica until the 1941 Amendment was comprised to establish the principle of mandatory imprisonment as a result of the planters perceived connection between ganja, Rastas and the revolt. In 1963, a group of young Rastas exercised their right to walk across the Rose Hall land in the midst of its new development as a tourist attraction to be named Coral Gardens. It was on Holy Thursday when the incident pursued that left a petrol station burnt and a police officer injured after being attacked with a spear, leaving multiple Rastas incarcerated. Stories circulated claiming the Rastas were high on ganja and from there, the war on Rastas and ganja ensued. In the sixties, the export of ganja to the U.S. grew into an annual multi-million dollar business which also brought about the emergence of organized crime given the implementation of guns alongside ganja. Due to the oppression faced by Rastas in the past, some Rastas remained prudent in distancing themselves from an ideology centered around the protection of ganja (Campbell, 1987:106–117).

An article written by William Lewis in 1994 titled Dialectical Anthropology states that “in American jurisprudence, arguments are mounting that indicate some inklings by the courts to accommodate the ‘Soul Rebels’,” such as the right to wear dreadlocks in prison, and “ital” food for Rastas who only eat natural or organic foods.

In 2000, the Jamaican government appointed the National Commission on Ganja, which was chaired by Barry Chevannes, a well established scholar of Rastafari and then dean of the social sciences department at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica. Though stopping short of calling for the full legalization of ganja, the commission recommended its decriminalization (Edmonds, 2012:50).

Ganja is widely used among Rastafarians for its medicinal and natural properties and as a means to reach consciousness liberation which, in turn, has direct effects on essentially every aspect of culture — predominantly reasoning rituals, InI consciousness, language, livity and music. Although the cultivation and use of the sacramental herb among Rastas was once a persistent battle with authorities, laws and regulations pertaining to ganja along with its acceptance worldwide is becoming more relaxed and widely discussed in regards to its beneficial qualities.