Although the shelf of Rasta literature is stacked tall and Rastafarians have a wide presence across the globe, few books have been written by Rastafarians themselves on their culture. A new book begins to fill that gap, Book of Memory, A Rastafari Testimony - the oral history of an elder Jamaican named Prince Elijah Williams. Born in 1942 in Adelphi, JA, Prince Williams is a woodcarver and farms a small vineyard in Westmoreland Parish and the following two excerpts are from his book. At the time of this reasoning, Prince is at a stove preparing a bush tea out of dranko beet, susumbah, bay leaf, a head of garlic, rice bitters and ginger.
Within the house of Rasta, when Rasta get together and reason, they always chant a psalm before any form of reasoning. It's when you gain your strength: giving thanks unto the Creator for keeping you alive so you can rise up each day and see the rising sun and to feel the cool wind of the time. Sometime it hot, sometime it cool, sometime it lukewarm, sometime it normal. So this is it, give thanks every time.
I see the lickle one die, the lickle baby that just born. I see the older head die, I see the middle aged die, everyone dying. This is why I ask the question "Why is it that people has to die?" Because the Creator never dies. He is the same Creator from this creation until this moment. His flesh never see corruption, nor his soul stay down in hell [Acts 2:31]. And I know when this world were created, there was never nah cemetery. Each and everyone was enjoying this creation and live. So why people has to die? When they say that the wages of sin is death and the gift of Jah is eternal life [Romans 6:26], the lickle that just born, out of the womb of the mother, he or she can't talk. So it would be impossible for these lickle yout' to commit any sin so that they should die. It's more than that, something else is there. Yes.
This is what one has to search for - to find the livity.
I tell you about this pelican on the seashore. Every morning this pelican fly down - and it don't matter the amount of people there - he fly down and he walk the beach. The fisherman, they wash the fish and give him the fish to eat. And he take it out of dem hand and eat it. It's something that is happening right now. In the morning by the seaside, yeh see this big bird - yes, this is reality - just fly down, the fisherman know he come for fish. They just take up two or t'ree fish and put it in his mouth. Is the first I see this thing- I had never seen it. That mean this is the way we should live - as one. The animal can respect us. When they see us, we are friends unto these things. They doesn't think in their mind that we will hurt them, that they may hurt us too.
The lion and the lamb, they both used to eat straw. Now the lion search for flesh to eat. So you can see it's something wrong there again. Some form of hatred come in the midst. The reason why the lion has to look for flesh to eat at this time, it's because the gun man goes search for the lion to kill him. And from him see the gun man a'come, him just know seh my enemy. The lion knows his friend, that's why he could go forth and put into that hunter hand and he search and find that prick and take it out. And this is not fear, this is reality.
Once more we hope to live to see this happen in creation again, the lion and lamb lying down together like brother and sister.
The fish in the sea die his mouth, and that's where he feed from. Likewise for human structure, the things that your mouth speak, sometimes it destroy you. When I was a lickle bwoi, I used to hear about see and blind, and hear and deaf. Maybe in those days it was right for one to see and blind and hear and deaf. But in these days in Jamaica you can't. Because the same game that take your brother tonight can better you the other night. If you never help your brother when he is falling, there will be no one around to help you. So what goes around comes around. To free in life, you make certain that you nah hurt nobody.
You haffi take care of this structure (Prince pats his arm), no matter what it costs. You have to spend it on this beca only this stomach can make you earn that again. When this is done, this life, it doesn't matter the amount of money that you have - it's no use. You poor and you're healthy, you're strong, you can laugh and talk, every time. You're better than the man with millions of dollars and him can't spend none and him structure done. Life was given to man to protect it, to take care of it, so that he can serve him. No matter what color of skin you have, this [the body, which in Rasta lingua is customarily called one's structure] can be protected and it don't hurt. By the terror by night nor the arrow by day, nor the threat of ungodly men that set around you, to wash you away, even the pit that they have dig for your feet to take unto it, their own feet catching unto it2 . So man and man got to preserve dem'self to stay alive and don't wait on the doctor to tell him what to eat or what to drink. Because what you eat and drink defeat you. And the things you say, what you eat, what you drink - they are your defeaters.
You hear that fisherman have used dynamite for fishing. It's happened longer while now, from before mi born. That's wickedness, mahn. In Jamaica, you have dynamite at the public works because they use it to blast rock to make road and all those things. The fisherman dem get the dynamite from these places, and they carry it into the sea to kill the fish. They catch a man, dem gone a prison and charge him whole heap a money fi it. It's one of the most murderous things I have ever known about in mi life. Just to pick up wha him want. Him cyan pick up all wha him kill. The lickle fish dem so, him cyan pick dem up, though he kill dem. Why? Greed. [Prince kisses his teeth]. Cho. You see, they are talking about man seeking food from desolate places [Job 30:3-4]. But when you do these things like this, it make the place more desolate ca you get no more fish for longer while. So they make things more desolate, yeah mahn.
What I know what humans should do is to study their living sources of life, what communication they have with nature. If you feel your finger pain you, you talk to you and get some answer; if you talk to any part of you, you can get some answer because of your self. If something wrong with yourself, and you speak to it, reason with it, spiritual reasoning, it make you an answer, and you know firmly seh there is a man in you. Yeah, mahn, talk with yourself. Whatever you need to ask yourself, you ask yourself. Whatever you need to say, you say it. Beca it's only what you have. You don't have your wife; your wife can leave you and gone. You don't have your children - when dem get to size, dem gone. But you have your self. So you reason with your self. And find out what your self have for you.
Everyone can depart from you, mahn, but your self cannot depart from you. Your self has to stay with you. This is only what you have, every one. So you take care of it and protect it and make it light. Beca it can live long, y'know. This lickle structure here [he pats his arm again] can live long. The t'ings that people put into their structure help to destroy dem. Help to build cancer, help to bring hernia, help to build diabetes, help to build blood pressure - from you clot your vein from the blood passes through, problem in yourself. A one lickle vein pop up beca you nyam too much cow fat, you nyam too much fowl fat, you nyam too much white flour and white rice and white sugar, it clot up your belly.
Right now the world use Rastafari a style. Nothing nah go so. Rasta bear the tribulation a de four columns of this universe. Rasta tell the world what dem nah know, what hidden from dem. Because the things that go in your mouth, it affect your brain. But watch what the Rastaman eat and drink. He nah eat everything, he nah drink everything beca not everything fi eat and drink.
Some of what you eat have to do with yourself, and it will hurt your memory and your thoughts and your scenery. If you feed upon the herbs of the earth, you're different from the people who nyam the meat of the earth, you know. When you eat the herbs, the callaloo, the squash, the cho-cho, the okra and all these things, the carrot and the beet root, when you eat these things, you're different from the people who nyam the pork, the beef, the mutton, the lamb, the sheep or the duck or the turkey. Completely different. Ca you nah have in yourself no blood of no animal. You have whatever the herbs of the earth give unto you.
You see the doctor - if he used the herbs upon the people, he wouldn't have to do so much operation. It's a tragedy. When him do those things, that mean in two or three months you haffi come back. Him nah deal fi better the syndrome which causes the sickness. Him nah search fi dat. Him only search to lick way and ease the pain, and when the pain is eased, all is over - nothing nah go so. The root is there. You haffi get out the root, and when you do, you can completely destroy the sickness. The herbs of the earth a de healing of the nation. So why not find the herb which is there?
When I tell you the lie and I see you tomorrow and the truth come before - what I gwan to tell you? A double lie. These are the t'ings that murder the soul of man. You can't plant corn and reap peas.
The truth is hard to be known. A truthful man or a truthful woman got less friends. The truthful man is the upright man. The truthful woman is the upright woman. These are the people one should search for. Because if you are a liar and you find the truthful man or the truthful woman, ya cyan tell him nah lie. Ca it's lie they see ya tell. These are simple things you know that created creation. So simple, and it's great. That's the reason why they are able to trick the morals of man. To tell him about God live above the sky. That's what they do. God live above the sky.
God nah live above nah sky. The heavens declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1). The heavens declare - see wha mi talk yah? The glory of God. The firmament. Sure as the works you see deh - the sun, moon, stars. They are different 'ights up there where you go, different 'ights, some of dem ya cyan reach dem.
Because before this world form, it was in void.
And He separate the 'igher water from the lower water and bring forth dry ground (Genesis 1:6, 9). And He saw that it was good and He create man, in His own likeness and in His own image. So now - when you disrespect man, you disrespect the Creator.
So how come Mistah World Powah make so much boom?
Wha make him make ship of how-much-hundred feet long with all type of great gun? What make him siddung and let his talent that the Almighty put in him turn to evil, destructive things? Why could not he use this talent and seh, okay, let's develop so that the people can survive from the t'ings of my hand - the t'ings that my mind teaches me, I bring it out. Let's do it so that the people enjoy. No. Ya create the most dread fighter, fly with thirty-ton boom. And you go drop on de man country deh so. But because you are mighty with your talent, ya build a thirty ton boom a drop a fi 'im country. And when ya done, you friend dem. Drink cocktail and laugh, ha ha I have defeated dem. No! You cyan get to a man. Mistah Big Guy, ya cyaan get to I-ya. Almighty eyes watch over and over. Eyes that put on no pajama when night come. Eyes that need no jury, no lawyer, no barrister. Eyes that brighter than this universal world! Eyes that brighter than the sun ball watching over the universe, Mr. Big Man, beware. Serious pon ya table. Serious in ya bed. Nowhere nah left fi you go hide, so you haffi tink and mek all kind a weapon, wha you go do wit' dem? A no food fi eat, no bed fi sleep even. It's no form of life you can enjoy. So what make you build dem?
Prince Williams, who grew up in Thatchtown, JA, was kicked out of house after sighting Rasta in the 1950s. His thoughts and words on Rasta livity are expressed with a compelling voice in the new book Book of Memory, A Rastafari Testimony. Working together with editor Michael Kuelker over a seven-year period, they composed a narrative which weaves - in Prince's own voice - a personal and collective story of Rasta. Prince reasons on the Bible and Selassie, politics and human rights, ital food and bush medicine. Forthcoming from CaribSound Ltd. in July 2004, visit www.CaribSound.com for more.
1. Prince's passage mirrors Isaiah in the Bible, 11:6-7: "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together" and the lion shall eat straw like an ox. Also, 65:25: "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock." Both verses are capped by the declaration: "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord."
2. Prince paraphrases Psalm 91:5: "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day," Proverbs 26:27: "Whosoever diggeth a pit shall fall therein."
[i] This proverb is a variant of another proverb: "What you sow, shall you reap," which has a biblical basis. The reap/sow theme appears in reggae songs by the Itals, Wailing Souls, Culture, Jimmy Cliff and many others. Justin Hinds' "In this Time" (Know Jah Better, Nighthawk 1992) is one examples in reggae of the corn/peas version.