Why rastas have dreads

For instance, in Nigeria, among the Yoruba and Ibo people, a grown man with locs is to be feared. In the article In Nigeria, dreadlocks are entangled with beliefs about danger , Aguele tells us that matted hair is synonymous with madness and that madness should be beaten out of you.

Children born with knotted hair are believed to be incarnations of Dada, a Yoruba Orisha, and are revered until they get a ceremonial haircut, officially instating them as respectable and normal members of their community Aguele, It is fascinating to see how this West African tradition echoes with the intent of Rastafari.

They claimed this fear, this notion of danger. They wanted to be dangerous, not towards normal people but to the colonial authorities. In my imagination, a Rastafari could be a Dada child who refused to cut his hair, refused to conform to an oppressive structured to the detriment of his people and fought hard with his powers to establish a new and fairer society all over the Black Atlantic… but I digress.

They were the representation of their spiritual powers to be used against the colonial authorities and institution oppressing them: Babylon.

At that time, you did not wear dreadlocks to be cute or have long hair… You wore dreadlocks because you were defiant, you believed that HIM Haile Selassie was God, you believed that all Afrodescendants should be repatriated to an African country with reparations. Your hair encapsulated this power granted by this new system of beliefs and you were a force to be reckoned with, you inspire dread to Babylon.

You had dreadlocks, you were dangerous and in danger. After the groundation of , where all the Rastafari elders and followers met to demand repatriation, the relations with the police, which were not brilliant, became worse. Wearing dreadlocks was risking your life to defend your Panafrican ideology. The situation became so dire that the government ordered a report on the subject from the University of the West Indies to attempt to understand the Rastafari movement and livity better. This effort greatly contributed to appease collective hysteria about Rastafari and by extension secularised the hairstyle.

That is the reason why I argue that you can always have locs, but not necessarily dreadlocks. In fact, even though most Rastaman and Rastawoman that I know and that I have met do keep their hair clean and have ritualistic grooming routines, their dreadlocks look nothing like the neat well twisted, often coloured locs that you and I rock for fashion.

Usually we find that spiritualists whose religious path includes elaborate rituals tend to embrace the shaven head technique as it affords a level of ritual cleanliness, while those mystics who adopt meditative or otherwise non-ritualistic paths prefer to disregard the hair altogether and thus develop Dreadlocks. Dreadlocks are more than just a symbolic statement of disregard for physical appearance.

Both Eastern and Western Traditions hold that bodily, mental and spiritual energies mainly exit the body through the top of the head and the hair. If the hair is knotted, they believe, the energy remains within the hair and the body, keeping a person more strong and healthy.

In classical India, all students on the spiritual path were directly enjoined by their scriptures to develop Dreadlocks as a means to detach them from physical vanity and aid them in the development of bodily strength and supernatural mental and spiritual powers. As the world moved into the Industrial Era, Dreadlocks were rarely seen anywhere outside of India. However, at the turn of the Twentieth Century, a socio-religious movement started in Harlem, NY by Marcus Garvey found an enthusiastic following amongst the Black population of Jamaica.

This ecclectic group drew their influences from three primary sources 1 the Old and New Testaments, 2 African tribal culture, and 3 The Hindu culture that had recently become a pervasive cultural force in the West Indies. The followers of this movement called themselves "Dreads," signifying that they had a dread, fear, or respect for God.

Emulating Hindu and Nazarite holymen, these "Dreads" grew matted locks of hair, which would become known to the world as "Dreadlocks" - the hair-style of the Dreads. Soon after, this group would focus their attention on the Ethiopian Emperor Ras Tafari, Haile Selassie, and thus became known as Rastafarians.

But the term "Dreadlocks" stuck. Ever since becoming connected with the Rastafarians in the early 's, Dreadlocks have taken on, in addition to their original religious and spiritual significance, a potent social symbolism as well.

Today, Dreadlocks signify spiritual intent, natural and supernatural powers, and are a statement of non-violent non-conformity, communalism and socialistic values, and solidarity with less fortunate or oppressed minorities. Contact Vic D with any questions pertaining to this article. Because we like to encourage independent thought amongst the Knotty family, here is another view via email of the many-sided dreadlock story for your reading pleasure and education.

First, I would like to thank you for the service you are providing for people who wear locks. History of Dreadlocks Dreadlocks are not unique to Jamaica and Rastafarians. The dreadlocks hairstyle originated in Africa and was worn by various tribes there. The earliest tribe this hairstyle can be attributed to is the Masai tribesmen of Kenya.

Many of the warriors of this tribe wore this hairstyle. These men sometimes dyed their hair red with root extracts. With Marley, "Rastafari became a worldwide movement and was represented through song, and the song communicated the message," says Campbell.

Until then, the Rastafarian presence in this country was tiny, and unless you happened to live in west London you might never even have seen dreadlocks. With Marley, all that changed.

Reggae and Rastafari offered disaffected black Britons something to identify with. It was almost as if, if you didn't have locks, you couldn't get a girlfriend. Dreadlocks became an outward expression of rebellion - just as they had represented a reaction against colonial society in Jamaica - and, predictably, were met with hostility. Schools refused to teach children with dreads, Rastas in prison had their dreadlocks shaved off. Those with dreadlocks were considered unemployable.

Around the same time, but on a culturally different planet, an ambitious hairdresser called Simon Forbes opened a salon, Antenna, in Kensington, London. Forbes was looking for a challenge: "I was desperately looking for something else creative, for another medium. We started experimenting with Barbie-like hair and hair designed to make extensions for afro hair. It was then that I came up with the idea of dreadlocks and extensions for caucasian hair.

Since then, his idea has been copied widely, but Forbes is still credited as the pioneer and is still as enthusiastic about the style as he was 20 years ago. Dreads can look powerful, but they are a friendly medium, they are pillow-like.

But Forbes's enthusiasm for white dreadlocks wasn't shared by everyone. And despite the fact that Forbes describes hairdressers as a "pretty non-violent lot", he was, and sometimes still is, accused by his colleagues, black and white, of ripping off black culture.

The ideology behind the dreadlocks that Forbes was creating couldn't have been further from that of Rastafari. Forbes's dreadlocks had nothing to do with being at one with nature. They were deliberately artificial. But whether you were a young black man wearing them to show your affinity with a motherland you had never visited, or a white pop star wearing them with make-up, to celebrate your sexual ambiguity, dreadlocks made a statement.

It was against this background that Cynthia McDonald opened Back To Eden in south London in , Britain's first salon specialising in dreadlocks and natural hair. The salon showed people that we did wash our hair, that we were groomed. I wanted the salon to be like someone's home, where you could relax, could know you were not going to be laughed at or treated badly because you were a Rasta. Simultaneously, a little-known sound system called Soul II Soul was playing at parties and local youth clubs in London.

They became known as the Funki Dreds, a reference to their neat dreadlocks. As the group took off, so too did the Funki Dred look - young black Britons had reinvented dreadlocks yet again, but this time they were slim and smart, almost manicured. You could have them put in, as you could braids, rather than having to bother growing them yourself. That's when they really took off. Slowly, dreadlocks became more mainstream. Have you seen how good dreadlocks look with a suit and tie?

The first thing you notice about Carole Tulox, who has curated exhibitions on black heritage, is her dreadlocks. Tumbling gracefully down her back, Tulox's dreadlocks are as fine and beautiful as they are long.

I try to visualise her without them, but I can't; they are a part of her. It sounds childish, but it was a form of liberation, a way of making a statement - 'This is me. What you see is what you get. Jessica Edwards, a year-old university lecturer in media, cultural studies and design philosophy, concurs: "My dreadlocks give me a degree of confidence, I hold my head up high.

They are a significant part of my personality.