Worship and customs

Worship

Worship

Rastafari doesn't have a specific religious building that is set aside for worship. Rastafarians usually meet weekly, either in a believer's home or in a community centre.

The meetings are referred to as Reasoning sessions. They provide a time for chants, prayers and singing, and for communal issues to be discussed. Marijuana may be smoked to produce heightened spiritual states.

The music used at these meetings is known as Nyabingi, and so when meetings are mostly musical they are often referred to as Nyabingi meetings.

Meetings may also include large feasts.

Marijuana

Marijuana plants in a greenhouse

Marijuana is regarded as a herb of religious significance. It is used in Rastafari reasoning sessions, which are communal meetings involving meditation.

According to Leonard Barrett, Rastafarians first began using Marijuana in reaction to the treatment of blacks in society. It became a reactionary device to enable freedom from the establishment. (Leonard Barrett, The Rastafarians, The Dreadlocks of Jamaica p. 129)

Marijuana is used by Rastafarians to heighten feelings of community and to produce visions of a religious and calming nature.

Rastafarians are unlikely to refer to the substance as marijuana; they usually describe it as the wisdom weed or the holy herb.

The latter name is used because Rastafarians believe that marijuana use is sacred, following biblical texts justifying its use:

The use of marijuana is a highly ritualised act, and before it is used a prayer is uttered by all:

The marijuana is rolled into a cigarette or placed into a chillum pipe. When smoked it is inhaled deeply, then held, as the devotee enters into a trance-like state.

Dreadlocks and food

Dreadlocks

Rastafarians can often be recognised from the way they style their hair. Rastafarians grow their hair long, before coiling it into dreadlocks.

The wearing of hair in dreadlocks by Rastafarians is believed to be spiritual; this is justified in the Bible:

Food laws

• Rastafarians eat strictly I-tal which means natural and clean
• Early Rastafarians are unlikely to eat meat, scavengers or shellfish
• Rastafarians do not eat pork
• Rastafarians regularly eat fish, but will not eat fish more than twelve inches long
• Rastafarians eat copious amounts of vegetables, as they are of the earth, and therefore good
• Food is prepared without salt, and coconut oil is the most likely form of oil to be utilised
• Rastafarians do not drink alcohol
• They do not drink milk or coffee, but will drink anything herbal, grown from natural roots, e.g. herbal tea
• Rastafarians consume plentiful amounts of fruit and fruit juice

Find out more

• Rites of passage
• Nyabingi and music