CHAPTER 3

DREAD BEGININGS
DREADISM EXPLAINED
#“I hair they do not like…I words the cannot hear.”

Dread, though not recognised as a separate mansion within the Rastafarian moveme
nt, but rather one of the idiomatic expressions used by Rastafarians in Jamaica
referring to the knotted-hair--dread locks of which has become synonymous with t
he movement since the 1940’s# when dreadlocks were cultivated and adopted by guard
smen of the early Rastafarian evangelist, Leonard Howell at his Pinnacle estate.
The record states that early Rastafarians were also inspired images of African
tribe in National Geographic magazine that depicted Jomo Kenyatta’s freedom fighte
rs wearing locks. Rastafarians also adopted the Biblical Nazarite vow enshrined
in the book of Numbers: #chapter 6, verse 5...all the days of the vow of his se
paration there shall no razor come upon his head: until the days be fulfilled, i
n which he seperateth himself unto the Lord, he shall be Holy and shall let the
locks of the hair of his head grow.
The word dread is mentioned in the #King James version of the Holy Bible no les
s than 10 times: Genesis 9, verse 2: And the fear of you and the dread of you sh
all be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air. Exodus Cha
pter 28 , verse 17: Fear and dread shall fall upon them; by the greatness of th
ine arm…Deuteronomy Chapter 1, verse 29: Then I said unto you, dread not, neither
be afraid of them. Deuteronomy Chapter 2, verse 25: This day will I begin to pu
t the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the wh
ole heaven. Deuteronomy Chapter 11, verse 25:There shall no man be able to stan
d before you: for the Lord your God shall lay fear of you and the dread you upon
all the land that ye shall tread upon… Chronicle chapter 22, verse 13: …be strong,
and of good courage; dread not, nor be dismayed. Job Chapter 13, verse 11 shall
not his excellency make you afraid? And his dread fall upon you. And finally, J
ob chapter 13, verse 2: Withdraw thine hand far from me: and let not thy dread
make me afraid. It is this association with reverence and awe to the divine that
may have inspired the conjoining of the words dread and locks.
Word dread and its literal dictionary meaning: Profound fear; terror.
Fearful or distasteful anticipation. An object of fear, awe, or reverence.
is of use archaic dating back to old English usage of the 12 century. It therefo
re little surprise that in the 1611 dedicatory epistle to King James, he is hai
led with the words, Great and manifold were the blessings, most dread Sovereign,
which Almighty God, the Father of all mercies, bestowed upon us the people of
England…
Another associative meaning of the word dread worth looking at is explanation of
19th century Danish philosopher, #Soren Kierkegaard that dread is a fundamenta
l category of existentialism, and that dread or angst , is a desire for what one
fears and is central to his conception of #original sin. According #to Mike Joh
nduff a graduate student in English at Princeton in his paper ‘Dread in Kierkegaar
d’ the story of Adam and Eve and the eating of forbidden fruit, it is the prohibit
ion that alarms Adam or induces a state of dread, and because of this prohibiti
on awakens in him the possibility of freedom...

#D.R.E.A.D is also the acronym for DREAD: Risk assessment model

a computer convention used for assessing security risks at Microsoft. The packa
ge rates the threats in five groups: Damage - how bad would an attack be; Repro
ducibility - how easy it is to reproduce the attack; Exploitability - how much w
ork is it to launch the attack; Affected users - how many people will be impacte
d and Discoverability - how easy it is to discover the threat;

Now we see how Dreadlocks as a religious tenet within RastafarI, and the outla
wing of the Dreads in Dominica under the Dread Act both are in keeping with a de
sire to rid themselves of the legacy and the effects of colonialism. Indeed othe
r fundamental tents of the Rastafarian faith: the worship and divinity of Empero
r Haile Sellassie of Ethiopia; the ritual use of marijuana and the repatriation
to Africa are all inspired by the yearning to be free: the feeling of dreadness.
Dominican, historian, Lennox Honychurch’s explanation of the word dread is, a viol
ent group of disaffected youth who branched away from mainstream Rastafarianism
in Dominica during the 70‘s. According to Honychurch, the term dread described in
dividuals whose lifestyle included living in the woods, raiding estates and farm
ers holdings and “were responsible for the deaths of a number of citizens in isola
ted areas.” when the Dread Act was passed, many who were advocates of Black power
and who participated in the four corner discussions and African Liberation Day
marches, fled to the hills to escape police brutality and the forcible shaving o
f their locks as was sanctioned by the Johns administration.
MAN IN THE HILLS
If the utopian vision of the Dread brethren had been given a chance to take root
, and had not been beset with the bloody clashes between radical elements and t
he authorities, what would have emerged would have been the result was a return
to ways of our ancestors. A modern day re-emergence of the early African societ
y before the encounter with the ‘white man’ . A sort of modern day maroon village, r
un by its own internal code of conduct, and driven by its own innovative technol
ogy utilizing the resources of the forests and the creative minds of the Idren.
Despite the witch-hunting men, women and children lived off the land and for the
land. Babylon (society) implements were scorned. Individuals dressed in variou
s designs of grass skirts made of vertiver grass, and barefoot was the norm. Bre
thren squatted on crown lands or in some instances occupied estates deep in the
forest. They would cultivate dreadlocks by washing and rubbing their coarse, kin
ky hair with various natural ingredients made from the young, crushed cocoa po
ds, cactus leaves or hibiscus leaves. The herbs would be grinded on a flat river
stone by the side of a flowing river of fresh water, that over time would be be
aten down to appear to be a small sink.
The end product would be rubbed in all directions of the wet hair, then rinsed o
ff, in fast flowing currents of the river shaking the head violently from left t
o right, and back to front, and even in a circular motion. in a few months the h
air would turn copper-brown, from the resin of the cocoa pods would twist and co
il into knots and over time would lengthen and matt into clusters each head pro
ducing its own unique style. Some who lived in villages and towns near the sea w
ould soak the dreads in the salty water and the Caribbean sun would starch the t
resses

For detergents, the dreads would make caster and coconut oil and use it to oil t
heir bodies and grease their locks. Lime was a popular detergent to ward off und
er arm odours. Man-made implements, like cups and plates, and other cutlery woul
d be replaced with gadgets made from bamboo stems, pipes for smoking the herb, s
poons, beds and shingles and sidings for the houses that may consist also of pal
m leaves. Coconut shells were also used to make graters to grind the coconut fro
m which they extracted the milk to add to food. The scooped out shell of the cal
abash fruit would be used as a bowl for eating or drinking. The ubiquitous fire
of dried timber would always be alight. Fire would travel between camps on smoul
dering bwa flo.
The clay pot replaced the iron saucepan, which facilitated the one-pot holds-rec
ipes of vegetables, cabbage, chive, okra, radish and ground provisions like da
sheen, Tanya yams, Cush-cush and green bananas and spices. It was a common meal
to simply roast breadfruit, banana, plantains or corn and eat this with a drink
of pepper mint tea sweetened with freshly squeezed cane juice from the dried ou
t shell of a calabash fruit. Many brethren cultivated marijuana near their farms
or secretly in the forest.
Yet there were clear distinctions between town and country dreads. Those dreads
or Rastas who leaned more towards a religious outlook and worshiped Emperor Hai
le Sellassie, like their Jamaican counterparts adopted a language system called
Iyaric-a substitution of words in the English language with words prefaced with
the pronoun I and other modifications such I and I, and I man, favoured languag
e from the extremists would be a form of dread patwa. A type of modified languag
e patterned on the patwa spoken by the Dominicans since the days of the French s
ettlers.

During that period of intense social upheaval, the quiet peasantry lifestyle of
Roseau and environs had undergone a transformation. The leftist/communist rheto
ric; the Black Power world-view and the introduction of RastafarI, whose central
belief was that Emperor Haile Sellassie of Ethiopia of was the Almighty God a
nd returned Messiah, spawned a new youth sub-culture that in Dominica its adhe
rents would be widely known as The Dreads.
The military coup against Haile Sellassie that took place in Ethiopia in Augus
t of 1975 by militant soldiers led by Haile Miriam Mengustu did nothing to aid t
he Dreads in their struggle. Ironically, Rastafarian Bob Marley and his band The
Wailers were just about beginning to enjoy world wide acclaim and in 1975 had p
roduced their third studio album for Chris Blackwell’s Island Records: Natty Dread
. One cannot say for sure, but only summarise that Bob knew of events that were
taking in this tiny eastern Caribbean island south of Jamaica. The title track
Natty Dread was almost a war cry, as the Dreads of whom, Destrot was among their
number, afros turned into cork-screwed dreadlocks and their voices and herb-ind
uced apocalyptic protest for new world order against the unjust capitalist syste
m took ever increasing violent forms of protest. Bob in ‘Three O’clock, Road block’ c
aptured the hostilities that were none to similar to what early Rastafarians in
Jamaica had experienced. “Oh why can’t we roam this open country. Why can’t we be, wha
t we want to be, we want to be free. Free O’clock, Road block….”
The dreads reciprocated by turning the social norms expected of genteel youth o
n its head. Not only dreading the hair but by wearing dishevelled clothing, shi
rt tails out side of their trousers, wearing vests with anti establishment wordi
ng and wearing the discarded black rubber rings from oil drums as a protest th
ing. They used coconut oil to polish their skin and castor oil to thicken the ha
ir. Those who were more financial able perhaps returning from the USA or the US
Virgin islands, donned wrangler jeans and shirts, and flashed the ubiquitous rat
chet.
Despite the Act, the Dreads continue to grow. Areas of New Town, River Street, F
ond Cole were notorious. The pungent scent of marijuana smuggled in from Jamaica
found its way into the dread circles and the young men and women could bee seen
walking through the streets of Roseau with a spring in their step, eyes red an
d fiery. A division would arise eventually between who was Dread and who was Ras
tafarian. A dread living in the town or a dread in the bush. The debate continue
d even among bald heads(comb some)
1976
By 1976 I had completed my study of the Bible-reading the shorter books first, t
hose of the new testament, then the larger books of the old testament. I searche
d intently for passages that I had heard that were used by Rastafarians in Jamai
ca to support their precepts and practices. Particularly those that supported th
e divinity of Emperor Haile Sellassie found in the book of revelation: 5:5...But
one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda
h, the Root of David has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven sea
ls.’’ Again here in black and white in Revelation 19: 16...And He has on his robe a
nd on his thigh a name written: King of Kings and Lord of Lords. AS a teenager,
I was fascinated that such coincidences could exist in the very same Bible that
the colonialists had used to enslave us. Rastas used Revelation chapter22: 2 t
o identify the herb as the Tree of life. It all started to make sense to me: I a
nd I were the true Israelites, and that all the prophets were black. The King Ja
mes Bible was just an attempt to try to hid the truth from us the descendents of
Africans brought to the West Indies as slaves, but from a glorious heritage whi
ch Babylon had tried to hide from us, and was now being revealed to us through
RastafarI.
That year I was introduced to a Vivian Trotter through one of my study partners
, Errol Thomas. Vivian was a newly graduated engineer, having left Dominica in O
ctober 1970 to study natural sciences, eventually switched to engineering, at th
e St. Augustine campus, University of the West Indies (UWI) in Trinidad. ‘Trog’ as h
e is affectionately called by his close brethren had returned to Dominica just w
hen the Dread Act was at a lull. Errol and I would visit him at Franklyn Lane G
oodwill and spend long hours reasoning on various aspects of Rastafari. He is De
smond Trotter’s eldest brother, and like Garner and Desmond were all dreadlocked
Rastafarians. He always had on hand a tray of sweet smelling marijuana and we wo
uld smoke and reason, and he would share publication on Rastafari such as Dread
written by a Jesuit priest Joseph Owens who had studied the Rastafarians in the
early seventies, and the Report on the Rastafari in Kingston Jamaica published
in 1960 by a group of eminent scholars from the then University College of the
West Indies now (UWI) including M.G. Smith, Roy Augier and Rex Nettleford who
at request of Elder Jamaican, Rastafarian, Mortimo Planno and others suggested t
hat a study be conducted with the aim of explaining what the movement stood for.

Trog used to visit Dominica regularly during the holiday seasons of Christmas an
d Easter, However during the trial of his little brother, Desmond Trotter he was
tipped of that certain elements in the police force were waiting to interrogate
him, or perhaps worse at the port… “about them time there they were enforcing the
Dread Act.,” he recalled to this author,
“ Because when they first started, they did some enforcement, then they cooled out
. Then other times they came back again, you know, so it might have been one of
those subsequent enforcements, so to speak.. Different phases you know. They wou
ld just bring it our and arrest man at any time and make an issue. So on one of
those visits, on my way down by boat, I got the word that those secret police w
ho ever they were, were just waiting for me to come, so I was advised , just to
stay away for the time, you know. I think that even in ‘74 that happened as well b
ecause I didn’t come home from the beginning of the holidays. I had to stay away f
or a while, then I came.

GROUP I
Another strong influence upon me was my participation in the drumming Group ‘I’ A gr
ouping of drummers, singers and musicians who used to assemble at the home of Li
onel ‘Ras Lion’ Leslie at downtown Roseau on King’s Lane. Ras Lion or ‘Lio’, a graduate of
the St. Mary’s Academy, and who had witnessed and participated in much of the bla
ck power happenings which started at that secondary school. We would meet at his
home and the strains of Nyabinghi drums could be heard for some distance. Memb
ers at the time were Lio’s brother Derek Rah Peters who played the repeater, Ras
Algie and Gregs, Elvis ‘Roots’ Gachette would accompany Rah’s intricate licks with rhy
thm, Andre Adawah Joseph and my self would play flute and other percussion instr
uments. Murthy and others would play an assortment of guitars and sister Rosemon
d and all of us would back up Lio as he sang songs like:
Iration, Iration Iration
talking ‘bout Jah, Jah, creation
beauty in the highest degree
behold check what I see
And Rasta choruses like By the ‘Rivers of Babylon’ and ‘Holy Mount Zion’
I spoke with Lion Les, formerly Ras Lion when he spent a few weeks in the United
kingdom in December in 2009. My wife and I drove up to meet him in London. It m
ust have been at least ten years since we had met face to face. What follows her
e is an extract of a video interview I conducted with him and he begins by givin
g praises to Rastafari. #“ Right now I am based in Queens New York, pretty much, y
ou know working out there with the Department of Environmental Protection. Prett
y strong feeling strong representing Rastafari in that privilege position, man.
Also still involved in the arts right now and poetry doing my t-shirt printing,
drawings paintings, you know. So still working, persevering , and representing
to the fullest.” Lion who is also a member of the Dominica Diaspora social netwo
rking group continued by drawing on his memories of the early days of Dread in
Dominica. “ On the question of Rastafari, you know, well, from SMA [Saint Mary’s A
cademy] days, as you know SMA guys being pioneers in advocating blackness and st
retching forward their black power and positiveness…erm .. from way back in those
times, man, we, you know, on a whole were pretty conscious. I mean I was in cla
ss with persons like the ambassador, Crispin Gregoire, you know, guys like Gift
us John who is a writer; guys like Maxime St. Hillaire who is a professor at one
of the universities, I believe he is the dean of the college where he works at
and a number of other guys, you know, on a whole we pretty much read a lot, man:
Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver, you know a lot of that stuff. We on a whole exch
anged books and pretty much educated ourselves and you know, read a lot of West
Indian history…” Speaking about his days before the formation of his drumming ensem
ble, Group I, Lion les credited Sister Nats as being on of the persons who had a
nurturing influence on him. “ Another person who pretty influential in that was S
ister Nathalie Charles. She was a sister in terms of closeness growing up and s
he being the age of my older sister, she pretty much grew up around and looked
out for us and coming back from Canada she taught us a lot, man. We had a group,
, the Harambee Theatre Workshop , and we had our performance poetry section. My
brother Rah, as you know, formerly of WCK. Rah was pretty much instrumental in
that he was our drummer, at that time he was perhaps, ten, eleven years old, he
was already a drummer. We had people like Marti wed, who is a Muslim right now,
Yusef Ali. We had a couple of other people like Hephlaine and later Judith Jo
seph, she was also part of that group, and we pretty much did performance poetr
y. Group also had a dance section, we had a drama section. We had training from
people like Lennox Honychurch, we also attended a number of workshops. I remembe
r attending a workshop that Rex Nettleford from Jamaica held. We also had Carl I
shmael from St Lucia helping us.”
Lion Les (left) meets author in London 2010
Lion recalled that later he was to form his own group of which I as a teenager w
as a part of. #“we had various amount of people like Charlo, Pierre Charles, Ras M
o , there were a number of people. Rah, my brother, Ras Algi, Murphy.” There was n
o stopping him now as memories of the days of Group I flooded back to him, “while
we were not out there as a group trying to make money, we pretty much enjoyed o
urselves. At one time I remember we had as much as 12 to 14 members who were in
volved in that [Group I]. Roots: Elvis, Carlty his partner with him, Gregs, Ras
Algi, Murphy, another guy, Wada who left, I haven‘t seen this guy for 20 years, he
was a gutarist…we went through different phases, but erm…we pretty much did a lot o
f Nyabinghi stuff.” At this point, I reminded Lion that the Group had performed at
St. Joseph at a festival during which I had played flute and percussion. He pic
ked up the thread enthusiastically and added, “with Grammacks. Yes we did that and
I believe that was on of our best reception. Because that was a huge crowd, and
that was a number of years going back. Yeah! So we pretty much help to bring th
at type of music on the scene. I think one of the influences I had was the fact
that I had the opportunity to go to Trinidad in the early 70’s and Barbados and I
was able to see a couple groups of that type perform. One group in particular wa
s Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus from Jamaica. They were pretty much into th
at Nyabinghi stuff. Also I listen to a lot of Count Ossie and the Mystic Revela
tion of Rastafari. I had the opportunity to get their albums in Trinidad. In fac
t I also had light of Saba, which was another Jamaican group in that area. So th
at was pretty much my early influence into that area.”

THE RIVER CLEAR REVELATION

It was and still is the practice for brethren who desire to live closer to natur
e and want to work on the land (live in the hills) to team up with an Idren who
had access to family land, his own land or simply squatted on any available pub
lic or private land. My first taste of going up to the hills was with an Idren c
alled Toss. He had a parcel of land on a hillside up the river Duce. I would go
with him occasionally to help with the weeding and harvesting of sorrel and oth
er small crops, and he showed me a small ganja tree ripe with sweet-smelling pod
s and brown leaves and we would pluck a few and gather some that had fallen and
dry these in calabash in the sun to smoke. One day, somewhere around 1981, I was
cooling out with some more Idren from Kennedy Avenue, Walo, Ras Daley and Cepha
s on a bench outside Ras Toss’s shack when Cephas told me, “ let us go by Mwata.” I d
idn’t know who Mwata was, or what was his significance in the movement at that tim
e. He lived in a two-room shack deep inside ‘pong’ and was a jovial character, dark
-skinned and his locks were short and a few of them stuck out leaning to one sid
e at the top of his head. He had a wide smile as he greeted us and instantly pus
hed a calabash of chopped weed towards us inviting us to roll a spliff. Painted
on the divider between the room as the image of a Rastaman leaning against a tre
e and the words, “ Dem want to kill I why? Will I death bring them the satisfact
ion that that seek for so long” Also up on the walls were photos of Marcus Garvey
and Emperor Haile Sellassie and an assortment of books and other papers were str
ewn on a desk. Reggae number emanated from a stereo set somewhere in the bedroom
.
Cephas introduced me to #Mwata, what was to be the beginning of a long friendshi
p and comradeship in the struggle until his passing way in 2000. Mwata, whose Ba
bylon name was Henry Jno Baptist I would later find out was a close lieutenant o
f Desmond Trotter, (Ras Kabinda) in the black power struggle of the past decade
. He was an avid sportsman and worked for the government as a prison officer dur
ing the days of the Dread act. He sympathised with us youth, as we simply spent
our days hanging around reasoning and going from Idren to Idren’s homes. Eventuall
y, Mwata announced that he had been given permission to occupy a piece of land
in the River Clear area. This was the area that Mwata himself planted his crops
and his ganja. He would resort to his hills, during the week, and usually came t
o the Babylon on weekends to purchase supplies in the market and to meet the man
y Idren that would come to see him. Mwata was a wise dread and very positive abo
ut the movement and His Imperial Majesty. The benefactor was a man named ,Mr K
elly. A red skimmed man from Goodwill, who was coming on in years and consented
that Mwata occupy a savannah in the heights of River Clear. It was about a 40 m
inute to an hour treak up the river, from the starting point at Palm grove. Like
the river Duce the river Clear was one of the tributries that emptied themselve
s in the the Roseau river. We set off with our back packs, tools and foodstuffs
for the first sightings of our promised land. Along precarious rocky paths, up a
nd up until we finally met a plateau on which the savannah stretched out for a
bout five acres. The soil was sandy and had a number of coconut trees still on
it, that had survived the onslaught of Hurricane David. It was between the cool
running waters of the River clear and another stream that sprang up somewhere in
the bush.